


and so it is

by therewasagirl



Series: Of The Wretched [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: AU, Best Friends to Lovers, Earth 2 AU, F/M, Friends to Best Friends, Robert Queen is the Hood, Strangers to Friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2018-06-04 07:04:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6647053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therewasagirl/pseuds/therewasagirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was twelve when her mother and Malcolm Merlyn started circling each other. Twelve and a couple of months, when they decided to date. Thirteen when they got married.</p><p>It's a long story from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. - i -

**Author's Note:**

> I decided a few nights ago that i was going to change the structure of ‘Of The Wretched’. 
> 
> it’s still the same story, nothing changes, but i started writing that story totally on the fly and halfway through i started giving these characters/universe a lot of backstory. so much that the backstory itself became its own story. 
> 
> so im keeping it that way, the ‘flashbacks’, as the first part of the tale, and the ‘present time’ as its sequel. 
> 
> basically what im doing is, taking the first chapters and putting them in their own story, just because it feels cleaner, structurally speaking. while the way it is now, it feels like im telling 2 stories at once

" _Home is within. Within me are mountains._

_\-  Aimee Brown_

She was twelve when her mother and Malcolm Merlyn started circling each other. Malcolm wanted to expand the advertisement of Merlyn Global, her mother was the biggest Casino and hotel presence on the West coast… It had seemed harmless. Or as harmless as her mother’s business ventures with attractive men ever were. She was twelve and a couple of months, when they decided to date, as well as work together. Thirteen when they got married.

In all honestly, Felicity hadn’t been surprised with the dating thing.  She’d surrendered to her mother adding Merlyn to her collection, so she had decided to patiently sit it out, the way she had sat out all Donna’s previous relationships. Non-engagement was the safest distance, especially since none of them seemed to last anyway.

Tommy Merlyn on the other hand – because this one came with a kid in tow, _unlike_ the others ( _it should have worried her, but she’d had no frame for it_ ) - had seemed ( _and had been_ ) utterly despicable. Not that her mother had cared, since she was always pushing her at him, wanting them to be friendly, as if the best that could happen to them was being the kids of people who wanted to copulate.

( _She’d been so desperate, her mother, to give her a family. Felicity hadn’t realized. She’d thought her mother thoughtless and only known solitude, while Donna thought herself not enough, and tried to give her daughter people who could be better. Both looking for each other and searching in the wrong places.)_

Felicity hadn’t really been open to the friends-and-getting-to-know-each-other idea of her mother’s grand plan. She’d thought it a waste of time and effort, since she’d thought her mother’s new flame wouldn’t last enough for Felicity to care. But also… she knew she didn’t deal well with scrutiny in any kind of situation, and that being around strangers made her even _more_ manic than usual – which meant that her mouth ran away from her faster than normal. Now, normally she didn’t really care. She’d never thought there was something actually wrong with the way she talked… So maybe she slipped up a bit. Talked too much sometimes. It wasn’t like she could _help it_ – god knew she’d tried to be different - and even her mom said it was endearing. But being a twelve year old freshman in a Vegas highly exclusive prep school, had taught her a lot about the ways 17 year old boys and girls could make her life difficult. So no, she did not want to put herself in front of a bunch of stuck-up Starling kids that had old money stamped on their foreheads like a landmark.

And she didn’t like the way they looked at her mother either. Not Tommy and not his best friend with the stupid hair and not the tall too-pretty-to-look-at-for-long brunette that was sometimes with them.

Which was why she did all she could to avoid Tommy Merlyn at first, but still, she had had to be in the same room with him for extended periods of time at least twice in the months her mother and his father dated. Both times he had been surrounded by his friends and had ignored her soundly, when he wasn’t talking to her through that self-satisfied stupid smirk of his. All of his friends were older and they all looked about as neat and put together as everyone in her prep school always looked and they made Felicity feel self-conscious of her glasses and braces, her round baby fat still clinging to her everywhere, every time she sensed them looking in her direction.

She knew, logically, that not _every_ time they laughed, they were laughing about her or at her… but it did not feel that way. 

God, how she’d hated them.

She hated _all_ of them even harder – her mother, Malcolm, his son, his son’s smug entitled friends – when Donna uprooted their whole lives to move closer to one _she_ wanted to have. Felicity never even got a say in it.

She’d been so surprised. Shocked, actually. She never expected marriage to ever come into it and had been as floored by it as Tommy had looked. Their parents had set them down together to tell them the happy news. And they had both looked like they had been slapped in the face.

Finally, something she and Pretty Boy had in common.

But where Tommy Merlyn limited himself to standing and shaking hands with his father stiffly, and forcing a smile for her mother when she embraced him instead, Felicity had fumed.

She had gotten up and stalked out, not answering to her mother calling her voice. She’d kept walking till she was out of the house and then walked further, until she couldn’t see her apartment complex, until she didn’t know the name of the street she was in.

She had felt so _angry_. And ridiculously betrayed.

Donna had always liked men and Felicity had always known it; she had had her fair share of them and honestly, Felicity never cared. But she’d never changed anything for them. But for this one they were changing coasts, schools, lives, _wardrobes_ , and Felicity wanted to scream at it all. And she did.

She rejected her mother’s soothing words and Malcolm’s fake smiles. She refused to be smoothed over by even the hurt in Donna’s eyes. Her mother hadn’t cared about her, so she wouldn’t care about her mother either. Fair was fair. She scowled at Tommy and bit back hard every time he tried to talk to her, to get back at him for all the times he’d looked at her like she was the funniest joke in the world. She couldn’t be happy with anything so she settled on making everyone else miserable too. So she wore black to the wedding, frowned in every single picture and generally was the most unhappy brat ever.

She knew Tommy called her ‘the nightmare’. She didn’t really care ( _or so she said, though inexplicably it made her even_ more _unhappy, the ‘he started it’ in her head no consolation_ ). He brought it on himself, and so did everyone else. If she was going to be the luggage her mother towed around, then she owed her niceness to nobody. Luggage was heavy, not ‘nice’ or ‘smiling’ or accommodating.

… she did meet Thea early on though, and as hard as Felicity tried, she couldn’t really be mean to her, because she was just too damn adorable. She was the happiest kid in the room ever damn time and she was about the only thing that made Oliver Queen tolerable.

They met at the wedding-that-never-should-have-been. She just bounded up to Felicity in all her seven year old glory and smiled, not caring about the doom and gloom little cloud that hovered over Felicity’s head.

“Hi! I’m Thea Queen, nice to meet ya!” and she’d extended her little hand at her all the way.

Felicity had hesitated a moment before taking it. She hated people who were assholes to kids and wasn’t about to become one.

“Felicity Smoak.”

Thea hopped on one of the many empty chairs surrounding Felicity, her skinny legs swinging back and forth without being able to touch the ground.

“So you’re gonna be Tommy’s new sister, right?”

Felicity filched. “No.”

“Right! Stepsister.” She nodded to herself, utterly convinced.

“I’m not gonna be Tommy Merlyn’s anything.”

“Why not? Having a brother is nice. Ollie is a dweeb but he’s the coolest too.”

Felicity bit her lip not to snort. Ollie Queen was the patented arrogant rich kid who knew he had a pretty smile, but that her just her opinion.

“I… don’t thinks it’s gonna be the same?” she tried instead.

“Why not?”

That seemed to be Thea Queen’s favorite question. Felicity floundered.

“Well for one, Merlyn hates me.”

Thea snorted out a laugh. “No he _doesn’t_! He told you were really smart. Like, super genius kind of smart.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Are you?”

Felicity blinked. “Umm… well I thing quantifying intelligence is a fundamentally flawed idea and the tests used to do it are arbitrary, so I don’t think…” Felicity trialed off as Thea’s eyebrows started rising. And then she sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I’m a basically genius.”

“Really?”

“Got a MENSA card and everything.”

“That’s so cool!”

Felicity blinked, surprised and a little afraid to smile. “It is?”

“It _totally_ is! Are you really a freshman? Are you going to be going to go at the same school as Ollie and Tommy?”

She didn’t seem to stop to breathe and Felicity thought she finally might have met someone who spoke as fast as she did.

“I… I think so…”

“Awesome!” She jumped to her feet. “You wanna come and mess around with the banquet’s seating charts and hide everyone’s left glove?”

Felicity couldn’t help the laughter at that. “Why?”

Thea shrugged. “I dunno. ‘Cause it’s fun?”

Sounded like as good a reason as any. And that was more or less how she made her first friend in Starling.

+

The too-pretty-to-stare-at-for-too-long brunette was Laurel, and she turned out to be really… nice? Like, a genuinely _nice_ , enjoyable person, who helped Felicity get around on first day and show her where all her classrooms were and introduced her to a few of her friends. And maybe her friends weren’t as nice as Laurel but Felicity supposed there was only so much any high-school girl could pay attention to the advanced studies thirteen year old weirdo in their classes.

She could have graduated at fifteen, if she wanted. And she’d wanted. But her mother her been completely against it. They fought about it for ages. It had been strange to have Malcolm on her side that time, but it didn’t really make her warm up to him any.

And nor did the way he talked to Tommy, actually.

Ok so, she had no great love for Tommy Merlyn, sue her. The house they shared was so big and he was gone so often that she could pretend that they didn’t actually share a life. But Malcolm was a real asshole to him and Felicity knew that she wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Maybe that was _why_ Tommy was gone so often… ( _she would_ not _feel sorry for him, ok! She wouldn’t!)_

Either way, instead of an early graduation though, what Felicity got was a birthday party she never asked for.

A birthday she learned of when a smiling Oliver Queen slinked over in the hallway outside her advanced mathematics class and wished her happy birthday.

“I wanted to _graduate_ , mother, I did not want a birthday party!” she yelled when her mother insisted for the third time she didn’t understand what the problem was.

“Felicity, honey, we talked about this. Fifteen is too young to go to college. The party has nothing to do with it. The party was supposed to be a surprise for you.”

“I hate surprises. And you know it.”

Did she forget everything about her own kid overnight?

“Well, I was kinda hoping you would warm up to this one. I got you such a nice dress too.”

Felicity bit her lip not to scream. She didn’t give a shit about the dress. Or any of it!  

 “I am not going! You can have your party, I’m not going to be there.”

Donna sighed and for a moment Felicity was sorry because her mother looked so _tired_.

“It’s your _birthday_ , baby. We always celebrate your birthday…” She said, sounding almost pleading.

They did. They celebrated at 1.24 am because that’s when she had been born, and the party was always just the two of them – because her father didn’t get to have any of her nicer memories now – and a glass of milk and chocolate cake.

Not like _this_ …

And besides-

“You didn’t even ask me.” And it kinda hurt her feelings, actually. “Or tell me?”

Since when was that her mom’s style?

Donna fidgeted, walked around her desk to get closer to her daughter but Felicity stiffened, so Donna folder her hands in front of her instead.

“Malcolm thought it would be a nice surprise for you. Help you make friends at the new school.”

She looked so hopeful and it made Felicity so, so angry. She clenched her jaw so hard her teeth hurt. She was shaking.

“Oh, he did, didn’t he…”

Donna looked away. “We thought it would be  nice. Something better than our usual-”

_We…_

 “I like our usual way of celebrating my brith just fine, thank you.” Felicity snapped, scowling fiercely. “I guess it wasn’t good enough for _Malcolm Merlyn_.”

“It’s not like that, baby…”

“Yeah whatever.” She snorted. “Make friends. I don’t even _know_ these people.”

The thought of actually spending time with people who didn’t want to be there and who would resent her for coming almost brought her to tears.

“Well this is the perfect opportunity to _get_ to know them!”

“They _hate me,_ mother!”

 Donna sighed and sat down heavily on the sofa closest to her.

“Are you having trouble at school?” this time her tone was the no-bullshit one Felicity recognized. She sat down on the sofa opposite to her and fiddled with the hem of her sleeve.

“No. People are… fine. Most of them anyway.”

“Is people being ‘fine’ the reason you want to graduate sooner?”

“Ugh, no. I want to graduate because I can. And because I want to go to MIT.”

Donna smiled, shook her head. “MIT is not going anywhere, baby.”

“I don’t like wasting time.”

“Don’t I know it.” Donna said around a smile. Felicity may be her father’s spitting imagine but there were some things that were pure Donna - and Donna took quite a lot of pride in each and every one of the little pieces of herself that were reflected in her daughter.

“How’s it going with Tommy?”

Felicity flopped backwards on the sofa. “Oh god mother. _Why_ do you always ask me that?”

“I want you two to be friends! He’s a sweet boy, and I am convinced that if you give him a chance, you would really like him.”

 _Sweet boy?_ Where did her other come up with stuff like that, it was as if they didn’t know the same person.  

“Sometimes I think he’s the loneliest kid in the world.” Donna said, eyes staring off in the distance. She turned a soft smile to her daughter then. “He could really use a friend like you.”

Felicity groaned. She hated the guilt card, damn it.

“Why am I the one that has to make an effort anyway? Sexist much!”

“Felicity…”

“What, it’s the _truth_. He’s done nothing but ignore me, and his friends are gross and they laugh at me, so excuse me if it don’t want to hang around with him.”

“Ok fine. Fine. Just… just try for me ok. Try.”

Felicity wanted to curl up into herself and maybe sleep for a week. But then all the carefulness of her mother came to her and how she always seemed to look so tired lately and how she smiled less and less… and Felicity felt guilty. She’d been so angry and unhappy… but she didn’t really want her mother to be unhappy.

And if all it took was to try, well… trying never hurt anyone.

+

Felicity walked around and pushed the bodice of the dress down, but then she felt like her barely-there boobs were falling out so she pushed it up again. She had been uncomfortable enough to fly out of her skin all night, so she saw this sneaking around as something that was worth it really. It was why she was putting so much thought in being careful about it. So she walked through the room full of guests on the tip of her toes and making sure not to look anyone in the eye.

She felt bad for leaving Thea behind like this but they agreed that if a successful escape was to be completed, then they had to go out in separate ways.

‘Trust me’ the Queen had said. ‘I’ve done this loads of times.’

She ducked inside one of the side rooms of the first floor, which was mercifully empty, and opened the window without making a sound. Pulled her long dress up, stepped over the window-sill and carefully put one leg over the edge and then another, turning carefully.

The window was just barely up from the ground, and she could almost toe the grass as she slid down.

“Hands up!”

Fear went up her body the way a drench in cold water would slide down. She shook and squealed and it made her lose her balance. She would have fallen hard on her side and expected to, but she was caught just in time between one laughter and another.

“Hey, easy there, kid.”

She knew that voice. It made her die inside a little… and hasten to get both feet on the ground and right herself.

He laughed when she pulled herself together and brushed off her skirt, checking for tears in the fabric. Her mother would kill her if she ruined this one too.

“Oh, I _hate_ you.” She hissed, pushing at him as hard as she could. Oliver Queen just laughed some more.

“So where are you sneaking off to, birthday girl?”

She looked at him. He looked ruffled and there was the smudge of lipstick at the side of his collar, and he had a sweating beer bottle on his left hand.

“Sneaking.” Felicity answered, short and angry and embarrassed. Her heart was still beating fast because of the scare he gave her.

Queen just shrugged.

“Don’t blame you. You’d never believe it was a fourteen year olds birthday in there.”

“Might as well be a wake.” Felicity mumbled looking around, convinced her mother would jump out of the bushes at any moment and make her say hello to her school friends again, while Malcolm presented her to his business partners again.

Queen snorted.

“Cute glasses by the way. I like the double color thing, it suits you.” Felicity narrowed her eyes at him and Queen immediately raised his hands, palms out to her, holding his beer bottle between his thumb and index finger. “Hey now, I mean that.”

Felicity shuffled on her feet, suddenly feeling put on the spot.

“Thanks, I guess.”

She looked inside through the window and behind her, feeling so guilty for sneaking of that she expected to get busted at any moment.

“You can relax you know. It’ll be at least 15 minutes before they start looking for you.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “You’re not gonna tell on me, are you?”

His smile softened a little, and even though he rolled his eyes, it didn’t seem as flippant as usual. “No, I’m not gonna tell.”

Felicity didn’t believe him, but it wasn’t like she could do anything about it.

“Hey Ollie, did you get… oh.”

Felicity groaned. Great. This just kept getting better.

She turned to face him. “Hey Merlyn.”

“Hey yourself, Smoak.” Tommy looked her over. “Your mom was looking for you.”

Felicity groaned. “Outstanding.”

“I told her you needed a second in the bathroom to freshen up.” He said then, with a shrug.

Like Donna Smoak was gonna buy that.

“I’m fourteen. I’m as fresh as it gets.” She snarked, and then bit her lip. It wasn’t like he said anything bad… it was just hard sometimes to get out of one gear of a relationship and put in the next.

“I’ll tell her you wanted to take a walk around the garden with Thea, ok?” he tried, and it sounded almost like a real question.

“Thanks.”

Tommy nodded. And then gave her small smile. “I’m sorry about the party, Smoak. I would have saved you earlier from the pain of shaking hands with every old dude in the room but my dad got to me first.”

Felicity only blinked at him for long moments. She wrapped her hand around herself . “I… It wasn’t so bad, I guess.”

Tommy quirked his eyebrows at her and she gave in.

“Yeah ok, I should have stayed in my room and read ‘The Bell Jar’, same effect. But… the bright side is that they all seem to be emotionally stunted and they think it’s ok to hand out money instead of actual thoughtful gifts and, you know… talk to me like I’m a person in the room.”

“Don’t take that personally. That whole ‘ _Kids are meant to be seen not heard_ ’…”

“Or _hear_ anything.” Queen added.

“Yeah, that’s kind of a thing most of these people have got going on.”

Felicity felt her eyebrows reach for her hairline.

“That’s… messed up. But positive for me, I guess, since I accumulated a small fortune and I’m gonna get me that brand new Linux OS _really_ soon.”

Queen laughed, leaning against the wall and taking a sip of his beer, but Tommy just smiled at her. It was the first smile from him that didn’t feel like a mockery.

“You could have asked your mom – or hell, even my dad. He’s been talking about your big brain all night to everyone with ears, like your brain is his accomplishment or something. They’d get you whatever you wanted.”

Felicity just shook her head. “I buy my own stuff.”

He stared at her for a moment then smiled.

“Cool. Go ahead, I’ll cover for you.” He said as he started walking backwards up the trail that led into the pool-house.

“Thanks.”

She turned around and started walking through away from the house.

“Hey Smoak!”

She turned in time to see Tommy walking towards her. He passed her a bag of chips, and started taking off his suit jacket.

“Those are Thea’s favorites. And _this_ ,” he said as the wrapped his jacket around her arms. “Is for you. It gets chilly at there at night. Don’t worry about Thea, she probably took a blanket. The kid is experienced.”

Felicity was left standing there, speechless. The longer she was silent, the more amused Tommy seemed by it.

“Wow, you’re actually speechless, I didn’t know that was possible.”

And sure, any other time she might have scowled but this time she couldn’t.

“I… don’t know what to say?”

“ _’Thank you_ ’ usually works.”

“Thank you.” The words couldn’t come out of her mouth fast enough. This moment felt so…weird. But also bigger than the actual moment and she really didn’t know what to do, and she felt like shit for having bickered with him day in day out now.

“I’m sorry I was mean to you.” She whispered them, toeing with the soft grass at her feet.

“Nah, it’s ok.”

“It is?”

She really didn’t think so, and the way she looked at him showed it. And that seemed to surprise him, too.

“Yeah, I mean - I wasn’t a ray of sunshine either. You’re just a kid, I shouldn’t have let it get to me. Besides, you’re sorry, right?”

Felicity nodded. She wasn’t really sure what she was doing here, or if she should trust him. But she didn’t have a real reason not to either, so…

“Yeah, I am too. Have a good night, Felicity.”

He walked backwards for a while and then ran to catch up to Queen who was waiting for him further up the path.

“Hey, Smoak!” Queen yelled and then winced when she glared at him. “Happy birthday.”

His whisper-shout seemed funny and she actually stared after them till they joined their own sub-party. And then she turned on her heel and ran down the path and straight to the docks where another Queen would be waiting for her. She was late and Thea would kill her for sure. For an eight year old, the smaller Queen was quite the fury.

She’d never know what changed that night. Whether her mother had spoken to Tommy or if Thea had said something to her brother. And the most beautiful thing was that it never mattered.


	2. and so it is - ii -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im having such fun with their past XD

Her first time over at the Queen’s was very… informal. Thea dragged her over. And then most times it was Tommy asking her to tag along when he went, so that she wouldn’t have to stay in the house with Malcolm when her mother was away. Which was not always smart, since there was something about Moira Queen and that blank _stare_ of hers, that never failed to make Felicity nervous. And nervous Felicity ended up  doing weird shit like hanging in the doorways like she was afraid to step inside and commenting on the furniture that looked the stupidest.

“Those are really cool candlesticks. Six inches apart?”

And it was so freaky the way the woman didn’t even blink. She’d just smile and invite them into the living room.

The first time Tommy had asked her why she was so weary around Oliver’s mom, he’d laughed himself silly at her answer. But it didn’t make her change her mind: she didn’t trust people whose hair didn’t move, on principle. Tommy of course had just kept laughing, the little shit. And he didn’t try that hard to mask his laughter at her when they were at the Queen’s either – and neither did Oliver. Whichever of them sat closest to her eventually learned to watch out for her insanely sharp elbows jabbing them to the side.

It never stopped Thea from inviting her over though. Or Tommy from taking her along when he went over – which was most of the time.

It seemed funny to Felicity sometimes, how someone who she had thought was so careless, watched over her like a hawk when his own father was around. It took her a while to understand that maybe he tried so hard to protect her, because he wished someone had protected him. He didn’t seem to understand, her stepbrother, that she didn’t need as much protecting. She could see through Malcolm, more often than not and his little blame-games went right over her head. It was Tommy who needed protecting.

The ironic thing was that Malcolm actually _liked_ her.

Well no, that was actually a very freaky thing. She did not want to be the kind of person a man like Malcolm Merlyn would like.

She’d asked Tommy about it one night, when they’d sneaked out into the tree house that he and Oliver had build when they were kids. He was going to leave for his second year of college the next day and he’d stayed the night in, to spend it with her. It had been sweet. And it had made her sad.

“Does it bother you, ever?”

“What?”

Felicity hadn’t known how to say it, so she’d just said it. “That he seems to like me more than you.”

Tommy had stilled. He hadn’t needed explanation.

“It did before. But not anymore.” He pushed his shoulder against her gently. “Can’t really blame anyone for liking you better than me, Smoak. Seems a natural progression.”

“It’s not what I mean though.” She’d murmured.

“I know it’s not. Does it bother _you_?” worry was written all over his face, and his eyes were serious this time. He was serious so very rarely. He liked taking things lightly, Tommy. Not making a big deal of anything because Malcolm made a big deal of everything.

“It kinda does actually.” Felicity admitted, looking at her chipped bright green nail polish.

There were a lot of things about Malcolm that had always put Felicity on edge. The way he smiled when he spoke; the way he never raised his voice, until he did. The way he paced in front of her when she was sitting; the way he looked at Tommy, at her , at her mother. The way he kissed Donna when she was upset. The way he waved away things that matter. How he made it a point to be super nice to her just after he’d been a passive aggressive asshole to Tommy.

No she didn’t like him. In fact she really resented him and she thought he was a cold bastard who liked telling people what to do and getting his way.

But he was her mother’s husband, for some reason. And Tommy’s dad. And though she would have advocated loudly for a divorce before… she kinda… didn’t want to now? Maybe?

Malcolm wasn’t around that much anyway and she liked Tommy a lot now.

He was a lot nicer, once he decided to be nice. He had a thing about people, Tommy: he understood them. Which was weird for Felicity, because she’d never met anyone, aside from her dad – and wow did he ever _disappoint_ \- who understood her. But Tommy did. And it was so weird really, but he unreservedly seemed to… _like_ her? It took a while for that to sort of, _sink in_. Like, she could go on and on talking and he sort of just - smiled? And it hadn’t taken him even three months to learn all her favorite comfort foods. He always was down for re-watching her favorite shows, and Felicity on the other hand learned to love foreign movies. He had weird a thing for French films. And a whole separate  thing for Disney Classics too, so they had lots of fun nights in with that. She always waited for him in the morning so that he wouldn’t have to have breakfast alone – he skipped eating if he had to eat alone. He had a knack for knowing exactly when to talk to her and when to leave her be, which made her trust him.  And the very best part: he was _amazing_ at distracting her mother.

Her favorite thing ever was when they would go out in these long drives that ended up at the other side of the city, and they’d have ice-cream sitting on a bench somewhere, or on the hood of his car.

Sometimes Oliver joined them too – which Felicity had been weary of, at first. Oliver was pretty okay when he wasn’t three beers into the conversation, but Felicity sometimes got the feeling he wasn’t a big fan of having to share Tommy with anyone. ( _Which was a total asshole thing to think ok! Tommy was his own person, not Oliver Queen’s personal comfort friend! …But she never said that though, cause that would have been a pretty asshole thing to say too.)_ He had this way of looking at her sometimes, that wasn’t always… it wasn’t hostile, not really, but it wasn’t friendly either. It made her feel like he was watching out for her to make a mistake or something.

But to her surprise, Oliver just sort of sat quietly in the back seat and listened to her and Tommy talk. He laughed sometimes, really softly, like they surprised it out of him.

He was weird, basically. ( _Tommy seemed to think he was sad mostly, and that his weirdness was because he had stupid ways of coping with his sadness. Felicity maintained that there was no excuse for being a dick, but she never said that aloud either_.) But Felicity had yet to meet someone who wasn’t, so she didn’t really think it was the end of the world.

But the problem with liking Tommy a lot and him worming her way into being kind of her best friend, was that Tommy was leaving again, and without him around, it was a lot more lonely. She could only spend so much time at the Queen’s before they noticed the Merlyn/Smoak kids used their home as an escape place.  

“How soon can you graduate?” Tommy asked, so out of the blue that Felicity startled.

“In a year, at most. I’m planning on enrolling to MIT by the time I’m 16.”

He turned a big smile on her, surprised and delighted. “You were accepted?”

“Yeah.”

“Whoa Smoak, why didn’t you tell me?” and though his smile didn’t falter at all, she could tell that he was a lil but hurt.

“I didn’t tell anybody. Mom is still going on about me being too young.”

He sobered up at that. “Yeah well she’s not wrong. College is fun, but take it from someone who knows the fucked up parts, it can be dangerous.”

“I’m not gonna go out partying every night, Tommy.”

He rolled his eyes at her. “Still.”

Felicity groaned. “Come on, not you too. I need someone on my corner that is not Malcolm. Every time he agrees with me I feel dirty.”

She shuddered theatrically and that finally got a laugh out of him.

“He still suggesting on putting a security detail on you?”

“Ugh, yes. He’s such a shameless control freak.” And an insane one if he thought he would ever get her to accept that kind of thing.

Tommy clapped his hands, hard then, making such a loud noise that she flinched.

“The hell?”                                  

“We need to celebrate.” he said getting to his feet and extending a hand for her to take. She did and he pulled he rup.

“You’ve finally decided to become a sheep herder, grow a beard and move t the mountains?”

“Close.” He took her by the shoulders and his smile lit up the room. “You got accepted to one of the best universities in the world, Smoak. This is big.”

“Mint chip chocolate kinda big?”

Tommy barked out a laugh. “You’re so easy to please.”  Which made Felicity poke him in the ribs. “Ok, so you’re easy to please when it comes to food. But food is important.”

“Food is life, Merlyn.”

“That’s the spirit.”

He called Oliver the moment they climbed down, told him to bring Thea along to, as per Felicity’s request. They drove out to pick both of them up in the convertible, because it was the car Felicity liked best. She gave up the shotgun seat to Thea when they got there though, because she always smiled the brightest when she sat there and that mattered too.

Tommy took the longer way through the woods. It was after midnight at that point and the hills seemed deserted so when Thea asked Tommy to go faster, he did, just a little bit. (‘ _Put your seatbelt on, Speedy.’_

 _‘Don’t be a grump, Ollie_ ’

‘ _You too Felicity.’_

 _‘Chill with the bro-mode Merlyn, I always put my seatbelt on.’_ ) And the faster he went, the louder Thea squealed. She threw her arms up and laughed loud enough to upset the birds in the trees.

Felicity closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the headrest, with the wind picking up her curls and pulling at her clothes. When she tilted her head to the side and opened her eyes, she was very surprised to find Oliver looking at her with the smallest smile to have ever been smiled. She was actually not even sure she saw it, it was gone so fast.

They drove out to the jetty at the other side of the city, and walked all the way to the water. Sat down and had their ice-creams there, with Thea leaning against Oliver’s shoulder and Felicity sitting between him and Tommy.

“It’s really pretty out here.”

“Starling growing on you, Smoak?” Oliver asked.

Felicity just shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess.” She answered without looking at him, staring at the blinking lights of the city curling around the harbor instead.

“Don’t get too comfortable – Boston is nothing like Starling.”

“I’ll can handle it.”

He huffed. “I’m sure you can.”

Felicity turned a small frown at him, not sure if he was honest of mocking, but he was staring ahead at the city too and his face was blank but for the little curl of his lips jut there at the corner.

“MIT and Harvard are really close though.” Felicity said turning to Tommy. “It’s like, a fifteen minute walk.”

“Did you Google that?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I’ve been wanting to go to that place for years, Merlyn. I know Boston’s map by heart.”

Thea laughed. “Wow, overkill.”

“What, I like being prepared.” Felicity defended.

Her brother was amused too, but for different reasons. “Are you getting attached, Smoak?”

“Shut your face, Queen.”

“Sure, sure.”

 


	3. and so it is - iii -

> _I laugh harder with you. I feel more myself with you. I trust you with me–the real me. When something goes wrong, or right, or I hear a funny joke, or I see something bizarre, you’re the first person I want to talk to about it._
> 
> - [Samantha Young](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fthelovejournals.com%2F&t=MTAwMzI4NzRiZWM0NmQ1YzEwMmMwMzcyNzFjNzQwNjMxOTI4YTdhMCxuTlZnaUpyZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AeDooDCJGro1CnfO4hLNwaw&p=http%3A%2F%2Fyellowflicker09011996.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F150859435112%2Fi-laugh-harder-with-you-i-feel-more-myself-with&m=1), _Before Jamaica Lane_

Felicity looked up. “He reads  _ three _ papers?”

“Yup.”

She closed Rousseau’s private correspondence collection with a snap – first edition, of course - and looked over at him, confusion scrunching up her face. 

“How come I didn’t know that?”

Oliver shrugged. “No reason for you to know it?”

“Hey, I notice things!”

He moved around the huge desk to stand side by side with her, in front of the floor-to-ceiling shelves of books he’d never really glanced twice. 

“I don’t think you’ve ever had breakfast with my dad during weekdays. He wakes up way too early.” The only reason Oliver had seen him was because at five am he hadn’t gone to bed yet, most times. 

Felicity tried to elbow him in the ribs. Old move – he dodged easily.“I’ve been over  _ tons _ of times  _ and _ I’m a way earlier riser than you.”

He raised one eyebrow at her. 

“What? I may not like it, but I  _ do _ get up!”

“Yes, I know. In fact, I seem to remember this time when you and Thea tried waking  _ me  _ up by shooting electrical current up my toe.” 

She groaned. “Oh my god that was one time, get over it!”

Oliver snorted. “ _ ’Get over it _ ’ says the girl who still holds a grudge against pigeons in general because one pooped on you one time.”

She looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “It was my favorite coat! And excuse you, I got  _ pooped _ on! Not the same thing. I have the  _ right _ to bear a grudge.”

Oliver just smiled. “It’s good luck in some counties.”

“Not on  _ this  _ country. I loved that coat.” 

Her pout was as adorable as it was when she was 13. Reminded him of Thea a little bit, but without Thea’s usually scorching temper to follow. 

It had been maybe six months since he’d seen her last - he’d spent the summer travelling up and down the coast and she’d spent it taking summer courses at MIT, the overachieving freak - but she didn’t look that different. Her hair was longer, the curls a bit more tamed around her face. She still had the same glasses. 

The bright pink lipstick was new, though. Donna must have been thrilled. 

“Malcolm reads three papers too.” She said absently, running her index finger along the backs of the books as she read the titles. “Maybe more. I don’t know.”

“Now that is something you  _ should _ know, since you ‘notice things’.”

“Malcolm doesn’t count. I usually step out of the room when he comes in.”

Yeah, he’d noticed that.

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Code I live by. Keeps me healthy. Reading three papers all probably reporting the same thing when you could easily get the info online, is a terrific use of trees, by the way.”

“I like to be well-informed.” 

Felicity barely held back a yelp and turned around with a big smile on her face. 

“Mister Queen! Hello!” 

She excluded both awkwardness and charm in some strange, and it was kinda hard not to find it endearing, usually. His father’s smile turned a shade more sincere. Oliver knew that despite him not showing it, his dad liked Felicity a lot better than he liked most people. Better than he liked her mother, for instance. 

Felicity wouldn’t even  _ look _ at him, if she knew that.

“The prodigal daughter returns.”

Felicity took his offered hand with ease but the smile on her face was embarrassed. “Thank you for inviting us over.”

“You’re very welcome. I admit it was for selfish purposes though: I wanted to hear all about MIT. Was it everything you expected?”

Felicity shuffled on her feet a little. “I think so, yeah. I mean, I’ve only been there for one term, but still…”

“Is it as hard as you expected?”

Felicity smiled. “Yeah. But I like it.”

His father nodded. “Good. Determination is what will get you through the hardest spots in life.”

Oliver barely held back from flinching. Why the fuck had he not left out the back door yet?

“Well then she should do just fine, since she’s as stubborn as a twelve year old mule.”

Both Oliver and Felicity turned to the door at the same time but it was Felicity whose face lit up.

“Tommy!” she practically ran to him in her haste to tackle-hug him. 

Right.  _ This _ was why he hadn’t bailed. 

Tommy laughed. “Smoak, you just saw me like, two hours ago. Was it or was it not you who picked me up from the airport and actually managed to knock up both down?”

“Shut up.”

He liked to pretend, Tommy, but Oliver knew that he loved everything about Felicity and Donna’s open way of showing affection. And though Donna seemed more… reserved now, maybe, than she had been in the beginning, she was still the most sincere grown woman of their social circle Oliver met in a long time. What the fuck she was doing with Malcolm, god only knew. 

He walked over and once Felicity had let Tommy go, he leaned in to hug his best friend. “Shame I wasn’t there to see that.” 

“Your own fault for not joining the Smoak ladies in picking me up.”

“Oh, don’t worry. Our very graceful descent has been immortalized by the security cameras. I should be able to get to it no problem.”

Oliver laughed. “I don’t think you can pay off airport security to share their recordings with you, Smoak.”

She blinked the way she did when she was surprised, then covered it up with a shake of her head that was a bit too nervous.

“Right. Hah, of course not. I knew that.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes at her as Tommy and Robert shook hands and exchanged the needed ‘welcome home’ part of it all. Felicity though was very stubbornly not looking at him.

She was lying about something, which was cute, in a way, because she was such a bad liar and always got nervous. But he never got the chance to needle it out of her, because a moment later they were being ushered out of the library and towards the drawing room.

“So how was England anyway?”

Tommy sighed. “Cold, wet. Glad to leave it.”

Oliver knew exactly what the heaviness in Tommy’s voice was and, by the wistful look in Felicity’s face, so did she. She was right, she  _ did _ notice things. 

“Well, your semester at Oxford is done and Boston is just as pretty in the spring.” Felicity said as they walked. “Way too cold for humans,  _ but _ I have discovered the immense joy of thermal underwear.”

“A motto to live by.” His father said, his voice shaking with suppressed laughter and Felicity winced.

“Right.” she said, biting her lip, cheeks starting to redden.

Tommy was about to say something but a very loud squeal interrupted him. Thea had just walked in through the door and the moment she saw Tommy she dropped her bag where it may land and  _ dove _ for him. 

It was a good thing that Thea was still tiny cause her ‘wrecking ball’ hugs put Felicity’s to shame. 

“Neither one of you is allowed to leave ever again.” She said as she gave Tommy the tightest hug he’d probably ever gotten. Only someone who knew her well would know she was not joking, not even a little bit. 

Felicity leaned a bit closer to him. “Just so you know – it looked kinda like that.”

“I figured.”

-

His father sat on one end of the table, his mother on the other. The meal was excellent – vegetable-based, mostly, since Donna had chosen to change diets some months ago and for some reason his mother knew about it - and the table perfectly set. It was as dinner always was at the Queen table… but there was also Tommy and two Smoaks sitting with them, so Oliver was kinda looking forward to it.

Oliver didn’t know when their presence had become something to look forward to, instead of something to be annoyed by.

It must have been sometimes between Malcolm and Donna’s second year of marriage and Oliver and Tommy getting arrested that one time for trying to break into a locked down mall while high as kites. Malcolm had to pick them up from the station because neither Robert nor Moira were in the country – which was also why Oliver had to stay over at Tommy’s that night, ‘under adult supervision’ by order of the court until the trial.

Dinner had been unbearable, with Donna straining to act as a mediator between Tommy and Malcolm’s cutting, seemingly offhand, remarks. It had made Oliver’s skin crawl and it had made Felicity stare at them all like they had lost their minds. 

Until she’d just… blurted, out of the blue and utterly randomly,-

“I hate Nietzsche.”

Both Tommy and Oliver had looked at her wide-eyed. Donna’s look though held a degree of warning into it. 

“Felicity…”

“What? I do. I hate him. He was an up-his-own ass chauvinist pig who was in love with his sister, wore the pelt of a dead animal for facial hair – imagining him eating something is super gross by the way - and had a face too small for his head.”

“That is one of the greatest thinkers of the nineteenth century, young lady.” Malcolm had said, cold and calm. 

“Yeah, the Nazis thought so too.”

“A face too small for his head?” Oliver remembers repeating. But Tommy had given him a warning glance and Oliver had shut up. 

And stayed in the sidelines all night as Felicity kept insulting a philosopher who had died more than a century ago, all the republican presidents and everyone else she knew Malcolm admired, irritating Malcolm to the point where he seemed to forget all about Tommy. Which, Oliver had understood a bit later, had been exactly the point.

He’d started warming up to her after that. Started thinking maybe it wasn’t so bad having this second kid around, after all. Though she really was too smart for her own good most of the time.

“Actually, if you think about it, all these thinkpieces about how Millennials are ‘killing’ various industries reveal a pretty colossal sense of entitlement of  _ your _ generation, not ours.” Felicity said as she carefully cut up her vegetables, and Oliver snapped out of the memory lane, returning to this dinner who wasn’t nearly as suffocating.

“Under normal circumstances, if a given industry finds itself unable to sell products to a given market demographic, we’d say it’s that industry’s fault for failing to offer products that that demographic is interested in buying, wouldn’t we?”

His father considered that carefully. “Yes we would.”

“So it only makes sense to blame the target demographic itself, if we’re assuming that the established industries have some intrinsic right to that demographics’ disposable income that’s being denied to them - which is clearly nonsense. ”

His father was frowning, but for once, not arguing. “Well, I don’t think it’s that simple.” 

“I disagree, it  _ is _ that simple. Everything else is dressing.”

Moira  chuckled. “Well, I see that your time in a university environment setting hasn’t made you less sure of your opinions.” 

Oliver looked over at his mother. “Was it supposed to?” 

“It’s better, I think, not to be too firmly planted in a single point of view. That way you are more free to change it without seeming fickle.” 

“I’ve never seen changing one’s mind as a sign of fickleness.” Donna said pensively, tuning to his mother with a genuine smile. “It means you are able of amplifying your opinions. Implies flexibility of thought.” 

“Besides, I’m not even seventeen yet. I’m  _ supposed _ to be fickle and change my mind and grow up. Why is there such a stigma around that?”

Oliver met her eyes and smiled. “You’re supposed to be born grown up.” 

Thea giggled. “Like Miss Trunchbull?”

Felicity and Donna seemed as amused as his parents were lost. 

“It’s a character in a kid’s movie.” Tommy explained.

“The world moves forward and there is progress in that,” his father continued as if he hadn’t heard them. “But you can’t deny that some of the practices of your generation are as useless as they are harmful.”

Felicity sighed. “I bet you’re talking about social media right now.” 

Robert nodded. “I doubt I’d see the philosophers of ancient Greece wasting their time on the internet.”

“Oh please, if they were alive today they the vast majority of them would be shitposting memelords. That sort of thing was totally in their idiom. Especially the Cynics; a bunch of wankers who thought they were saving civilization from itself through ironic performance art would have  _ killed _ to have a forum like modern social media.”

Moira was looking at Felicity the way she’d looked at Oliver and Tommy when they’d broken her Ming Dynasty vase when they were twelve. 

Donna however was very much in her daughter’s line of thought. 

“They were aristocrats who took themselves too seriously and insisted on ‘abstaining from pleasures’ and ‘consistency’ and ‘reason’, so I hardly think so, baby.” She said as she sipped at her wine. 

“Sure, if you take their writings at face value, but based on third-party accounts of what they actually got up to, a lot of that ‘abstaining from pleasure’ and ‘pure reason’ stuff was very much a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ proposition. Plus, the greater part of them seem to have regarded elaborately trolling each other as a virtuous pursuit! ” 

When nobody answered her, she looked around the table. “What, I took Ancient Greek Philosophy as an extra subject this semester.”

“As an extra credit subject?” Tommy asked, slowly, as if he’d misunderstood.

“Yeah.”

“Because it’s _such_ _fun_ studying ancient Greece! Are you insane?” Though Oliver couldn’t finish the sentence without laughing because Felicity Smoak was definitely the most freakish overachiever he had ever met and the funny thing was, she had literally no other default. 

“Jury’s still out on that one.”

“Felicity!” but Donna’s objection was mostly a laughing one.

“It was okay, but mostly it bored me.”

Oliver sniggered. “Well we can agree on that at least.”

“I guess Plato is a lot more boring without a hundred selfies and a facebook account.” Donna said with a smile.

Felicity turned to her mother. “What, you don’t think he would have had them, if he could?”

“I actually find the practice of taking infinite pictures of oneself to be a specific expression of your generation’s narcissism.” His father said. 

“Right.” Oliver interjected. “In the old days, people used to pay artists to paint them surrounded by their possessions.”

Robert gave him a one of his  _ looks _ , but Felicity’s grin was immediate.

“Or the even  _ older _ days, you’d be buried with them.” she added around her smile. “Your possessions I mean. And occasionally your numerous wives too, depending on the region. Much more subtle self-love.”

Robert looked between the two of them and sighed. “Sarcasm.  _ Another _ pillar of your generation.”

Oliver looked at him, wishing he could pound the words ‘stop’ into the side of his father’s face, but he knew it was useless. Felicity though just tilted her head, as if to consider it. 

“What’s so wrong with sarcasm?” Felicity asked, honestly perplexed.

“You never say what you mean. And you always think it’s the other person’s fault that they don’t understand what you mean.”

Felicity considered it. 

“Well, you can’t  _ always _ say what you mean. Like, you can’t really tell some people you think they’re a huge douchebag, cause apparently that’s bad manners even when it’s true? Instead you say ‘ _ Wow, nice jacket _ ’”

Donna gave Felicity a reproachful look, but she seemed to pretend not to notice, and Oliver thought back to every occasion he’d heard Felicity randomly tell Malcolm, ‘nice jacket’ when she’d been fuming at him just a moment prior, and almost choked on his salad trying to subdue his laughter. 

_ Jesus…  _

He hastily sipped on some water while a Tommy, who was biting back his own grin, passed him a napkin. 

“You do see how that doesn’t really solve the problem though, don’t you, Felicity?” his father continued. “Nor can it, if people don’t speak openly to each other.”

Oliver found it immensely ironic that his father was the one talking about honesty and openness, seeing that he was the one who regularity had a new affair every 6 months or so. But that was the joy being of Robert Queen. He saw no contradictions within himself. 

“Well, it’s kinda hard to say what you mean when you know you won’t be taken seriously.” Felicity immediately rebutted. “It’s not really the nicest thing in the world when everything you say and do gets greeted by a whole discourse of why that is ‘ _ wrong _ ’.” She used the quote unquote signs as if it was a normal thing to do on the Queen dinner table. “And needs to be rectified. So excuse us for not being fans of that.”

“Sometimes one party needs to speak and the other to listen.” His father insisted. “That’s what communication and dialogue is.”

Felicity pursed her lips, and if he were anyone else, Oliver might have thought she was flaking her way through this conversation, but he could see in her eyes that she was dead serious.

“Umm… when that is  _ all _ that happens though, and the roles never reverse, I believe it’s called d a lecture. That doesn’t encourage communication. It requires obedience.”

“And that seems such a bad thing to you, Miss Smoak?” His father asked with a smile. 

Donna smiled at her. “You’re not turning into an anarchist, are you baby?”

“Not necessarily. I just like independence better. Obedience ‘just cause’ sets bad precedents. Makes people believe they’re right, when in truth they’re just stronger. It’s not the same thing.”

“Yeah, we usually call that bullying.” Tommy added. 

And there was a moment – a moment when Tommy’s and Felicity’s eyes met across the table – during which they were in perfect understanding and everyone else on that table was left out of it. Everyone else but Donna, who looked away from them and to her own place with a frown, hand gripping her fork and knife a little harder than necessary.

“We’re getting off topic here.” Robert cut in, redirecting the discussion again to exactly the point he wanted to make. He couldn’t let it ever drop without having made it. “That’s not what always happens. Someone’s perception of reality and the actual reality are rarely the same thing. Sarcasm only helps reinforce thoughts that are already wrong.”

Felicity shrugged. “Yeah, but people tend to instinctively come up with ways to help them deal with stuff that make them feel bad. I mean, I think that’s basic human nature.”

“Not every time.” Donna interjected smoothly. “Some people chose to face their fears.”

Felicity nodded, but didn’t relent. “And when that doesn’t change anything, you make up other ways to cope.”

“And that includes running away from the problem?” his mother asked, dethatched and smooth. 

“If it helps. I mean, usually problems tend to be in a lot better shape than the people doing the running, but sure.”  

“Seems an escapist way of looking at things.”

It was about then that Raisa walked, she and her two helpers for the day distributing the second course. One that Thea scrunched up her nose at and Felicity looked at with the kind of suspicion that was, frankly, hilarious.

“Umm… mom.”

“Yes baby.”

“What is this?”

Oliver bit back his smile. He didn’t dare look at Tommy.

“Those are snails. They were brought here straight from the coast.” Moira explained patiently. 

Felicity’s eyes went wide. 

“They?”

“Yes.”

“You said ‘they’?”

Donna sighed. “Felicity.”

“Food is not supposed to have pronouns!” Felicity whisper shouted and that was it. Oliver couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore and Tommy didn’t even try. Surprisingly, Robert joined too.

“They actually taste good you know.” Oliver told her. She gave one look to the way he was extricating the snail from the shell and gagged subtly. 

“No thanks.”

“So where did you say Malcolm was, anyway?” she asked as she pushed her plate away from her just a bit, as if those few inches would create a safety distance. 

“Away on business.”

“Location-stop a secret?”

Tommy met Oliver’s eye across the table and they both bit back smiles.

“Russia, baby.”

Felicity raised one eyebrow. “So Malcolm’s firm insures Communists now?”

“I don’t think Malcolm knows any Communists.” His father said, his tone perfectly serious. Donna looked at him and Moira both, a bit startled. 

Felicity smiled nervously, as if she’d just remembered where she was. 

“I know, Mr. Queen, I was just…”

“Joking. She was joking of course, Robert.” Donna added amiably. 

Felicity jolted a bit almost imperceptibly and Oliver bit her lip because he was sure that Donna had just kicked her daughter’s shin under the table. 

“Hard to tell.” Oliver murmured, biting back a grin. Tommy hummed while Thea masked her laugh with a cough. 

By the look on his mother’s face, Oliver couldn’t tell if she was amused or annoyed. It might have been a little bit of both at this point. Donna and Felicity in a room together tended to have that effect on her. 

“Oh wait.” Mora said suddenly, taking the attention of the whole table on herself. “Rudolf Godfried.”

“Bless you.” Felicity said immediately and if she’d been closer he would have pinched her. 

“Too right. He was a Stalinist that we knew.” His mother explained amiably. “I’d forgotten.”

Felicity’s face fell, her fork stopping midway to her mouth. You could hear a pin drop in the room. His dad didn’t seem to notice though.

“Oh yes, we did didn’t we! We stayed with him once in Munich.” he added jovially. “Lovely old gentleman.”

“Very interesting stories.” His mother added, nodding.

Felicity followed the exchange like it was a game of tennis and the ball was a decapitated head. “Are you kidding?”

“Felicity.” Donna cautioned. In vain, as usual.

“They socialized with a known Stalinist? That’s… wrong on so many levels, wow.” 

His mother’s smile was subtle, but pleased. “No dear.  _ That _ was a joke.”

Felicity blinked and met Oliver’s eyes from across the table and then Tommy’s, who was just as surprised as she looked. Thea was the first one to laugh this time and she took both their parents and Tommy with her. Even Oliver couldn’t resist. 

Felicity finally rolled her eyes and gave in to her smile. 

“Yeah ok, that was cute.”

Everyone got back to their food – and then Felicity flinched so hard that she almost fell off her chair. “Oh my god, it moved.” 

Oliver almost choked on his sip of wine. His nose would burn for a few days and his throat would be on fire but it would be worth it. 

-

Oliver didn’t mean to listen in, but he didn’t move away either. 

“I’m worried about her, Tommy.”

“I know you are.”

“I mean… didn’t she seem different to you?”

She sounded unsure and small and scared, and it rooted Oliver on the spot. It was strange maybe, but he’d thought nothing could ever scare someone like Felicity. Hearing it now kinda freaked him out a little bit. 

“I don’t know… I love Donna, but I don’t know her like you do, Felicity.”

“She’s so thin.” Felicity said, and Oliver shifted on his feet because, though he couldn't see her, he could swear that she was crying a little bit. “And she’s going on and on about exercise? I mean I’m trying not to take it personally, but I think she told me I should lose some weight.”

_ The fuck? _

“Felicity, come on.”

“Which is weird, ok, cause that’s not something my mom would tell me, ever.”

She didn’t sound like she believed it though, because her voice shook. 

Oliver moved away as quietly as he could and holed himself in the living room where he was supposed to wait for them to come down. He thought back at Donna and her bird-like fingers, and her strained smiles and the looks she sometimes gave Malcolm, and felt his insides hollowing out with the weight of his dread.

So he stopped thinking about it.

-

He went out with Tommy and Laurel later that night. Felicity didn’t want to join them – she’d rather hang out with her mother, she said, and it took a bit of a stretch for Oliver to grasp that that was normal for them. It wasn’t like she  _ could _ join them anyway; no matter what fake ID they could concoct for her, there was no way she could pass for anything other than a kid. 

Tommy and Laurel lost themselves not that long after they got to the club. Oliver didn’t mind, he could find his own company, he was good at that. 

Three different drinks into the night he dragged himself to the bathroom and leaned against the door as tried to find Felicity’s number. 

She answered at the second ring, sounding sleepy and annoyed.

“What?”

She always answered her phone that way. Cheeky kind of rude, always deadpan, but open to the conversation at the same time. 

Oliver smiled.

“It really hurts my feelings, by the way, that you didn’t get me a souvenir.” He said, continuing the conversation he’d been having in his head as if she’d been right there with him all along.

“Queen?”

“No, Prince.”

She snorted. “I doubt he has my number.”

“You’re transparent when you’re deflecting.”

“You’re random when you’re drunk.”

Oliver’s laughter resounded against the bathroom’s walls, mixing with the faint bass. “Says the girl who at 14 proclaimed herself the mayor of Randomville.”

She groaned. “Oh my god, I can’t believe you remember that.”

But he could hear her smiling. 

“I remember you were wearing the most ridiculous pink dress I’d ever seen.”

“Ugh, leave me alone!”

But he couldn't stop laughing. “You looked like a fruity drink.”

“I swear to god Queen!” Felicity warned, but she didn’t hang up on him so he took that as a good sign.

“You got Thea an MIT notebook.” 

Felicity sighed. “You hate taking notes. And you would have been totally mad at me for getting you a drawing notebook, ‘cause you like to think nobody knows you like to draw stuff.”

“And you got Tommy and you mom matching sweatshirts!” Maybe he whined a little bit. Maybe. He was drunk, I didn’t count.

“Like you’d ever wear a sweatshirt, mister ‘ _ I dress like a fratboy, ask me how _ ’.” 

“I would have worn one if you got it for me.”

She snorted. “Yeah right.”

“What, I  _ would  _ have!”

“Fine Queen, fine! I’ll mail you a sweatshirt!”

“One bought especially for me.” He was careful to state.

“Oh my god.”

“Can you have my name printed on it too?”

“Why, are you in danger of forgetting it anytime soon?”

“I like being prepared.” Oliver said, thinning his voice to a girlish pitch to better imitate her. 

“Bite me.”

“Hey wait… how do you know I draw?” he said, rubbing a hand up and down his face.

“I’m a witch, I know everything.”

“And what’s wrong with how I dress anyway?” He pressed on.

“What? What are you talking about? Oliver, are you okay?”

He was- confused… but he was also aware that she sounded very serious all of a sudden and he was in no mood for serious conversations. 

“Fine, since everyone’s a critic, we’re going shopping tomorrow. You can help me.”

“What?!” 

“Three pm good for you?”

“I’m not going shopping with you Queen! What the fresh hell?”

“Good! Great! Bye!

“Oliver! I hate shopping.”

“Too bad.”

“Queen, I  _ will _ steal all your left shoes!” 

But he hung up and left the bathroom cackling at his own ingenuity. 

He woke up the next day in a gorgeous brunette’s bed, Melissa, at noon. He left breakfast on the counter of her kitchen before leaving. He got coffee for himself and Felicity both before meeting her, and a giant tub of ice-cream, because he wasn’t sure how he’d phrased it the night before, but he did believe in ‘better safe than sorry’ and the ice cream was supposed to help him with that. 

Felicity did go shopping with him in the end, which Oliver was surprised by, but also glad of, because he’d been right: she did make chores fun. 

And she made good on her promise to steal all his left shoes too. Oliver had the not-so-subtle doubt that Thea had had a lot to do with that. It took him a month to find them all around the Manor, by the end of it he’d end up laughing at the random places they’d been hidden. 

His souvenir came through the mail two weeks later. She’d gotten him a pink elephant the size of his head. He had an even pinker jacket on with the MIT logo, and farted when you squeezed him. Something his mother discovered when she accidentally sat on him.

Oliver laughed about it for five minutes straight.

-

“So!” Tommy flopped on the sofa right next to Laurel, who leaned into him with a smile. Felicity didn’t even look up from her furious typing when she answered.

“So, what?”

“So, are you coming to live with us this semester or what?”

Felicity gasped and looked up, eyes wide and mouth just a little bit too round for her surprise to be honest. “Wow, that was just… so sudden, Tommy, I mean… You’ve only just come back and you know Laurel and I are friends but we should really talk about stuff before you invite me into unto- hey watch my baby!”

Because Tommy threw a pillow at her head and she had to throw her arms out to catch it before it touched her computer. She threw it at him and it missed by half a mile, flying over both Tommy’s and Laurel’s head. 

“Pathetic.” Oliver commented. 

“Bite me.”

“I’m serious Felicity.” Tommy insisted, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees and looking at her intensely, as if he thought that would get her to look up from the screen of her laptop.

“I’m serious too.” She finally said, looking up. “I like where I live. I have friends and it’s basically inside campus. I don’t want to move.”

“You’ll have to, next year. They don’t let you keep dorm rooms for longer than a year.” Oliver said. By the irritation on her face, she already knew. “And our apartment is five minutes from your campus building, anyway.”

“Which is the reason why I picked it out in the first place.” Tommy reminded her. “You need a place, we got the space, where is the problem.”

“Isn’t some guy living with you right now?”

Laurel snorted. “Finn will move. He won’t care.”

“And you’ve got friends staying over all the time.” She tried again.

Oliver smirked at her. “Walls are soundproof.” 

“Ew, gross.” She shoved at his arm without managing to move her one bit. He might have said something more, but then he remembered he was talking to a kid who was 15 seconds over sixteen and practically Tommy’s sister. 

“I promise not to be a jerk when you start dating.” Tommy offered. 

Felicity narrowed her eyes at him, just as Laurel slapped his arm. 

“Ouch!”

“If you expect a reward for enacting normal social behavior and not being a Neanderthal, a slap is all you’re getting.” Laurel deadpanned in the face of his betrayed look.

“Harsh.” Tommy pouted.

“Truth always is.” 

“Besides, I don’t date. College dudes are gross.” Felicity said under her breath. 

Oliver exchanged a look with Tommy and Laurel and they were all immediately at attention, especially Laurel who sat up straight and leaned a bit forward. 

“Felicity, has anyone bothered you?”

Felicity looked up so they could see her roll her eyes at them. “Relax, it was just a general statement, not a specific one.”

“Oh. Right.” Laurel shrugged. “You’re definitely not wrong.”

“I object to that.” Tommy threw in, trying to lighten the mood. Oliver didn’t object at all – he actually shared Laurel’s sentiment. 

“Noted.” Laurel said and dismissed with a single word. She could do that. 

“I’m paying you rent.” Felicity finally said after having thought about it for a while, interrupting a heated debate on the best venue to set their new year party. 

Tommy groaned. “Aw, Felicity, come on.”

“I’m paying you rent, that’s my only condition.” She insisted and it was clear she wasn’t going to back off on it.

Oliver sighed. “Felicity, the apartment is paid for, for a year. There is no rent.” 

“I’ll pay rent to  _ you _ , not Malcolm, or Robert. No offense to your father, Oliver.”

“None taken.” 

“So, we got a deal?” Tommy asked her and Felicity rolled her eyes at him. 

“Yeah Merlyn, we got a deal. Oh, note of warning though: If either one of you leaves shit around for me to pick up, I’ll set it on fire.” 


	4. and so it is - iv -

> _Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away._
> 
> _George Eliot_

What Felicity didn’t tell her mother – nor anyone – was that her first semester at MIT  _ sucked _ . 

She liked that she was learning things she’d never known and that she was actually testing her limits, but she was also really lonely. Which was why studied so hard and took extra credits - she didn’t really want any free time to wallow. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, really. Most people were nice, but she didn’t feel like talking to anyone who didn’t talk to her first. And there were assholes, sure, but assholes weren’t exactly and extinct breed, so that didn’t faze her. And she  _ did  _ get into a few cool study groups.

The truth was that those first few months, Felicity missed home so much it hurt - and that had surprised her, considering how much she’d wanted to get away. 

_ Home…  _

She felt like she hadn’t had a home in years, but she missed her mom and Tommy. Thea and Oliver too. She missed talking girly with Laurel and laughing about stupid stuff with Sara, when she came over. Suddenly waking up to that made the whole ‘missing them’ more than Felicity had been prepared to handle.

It got better when Tommy got back from London permanently and Oliver made Harvard his college number three. Moving in with them was the best idea Felicity had had in awhile. 

She filled her room at the apartment with books and her random electronic junk. The boys didn’t say anything about the blankets and afghans she obsessively collected or the stuffed animals she left around the apartment either. Though Felicity was convinced Oliver laughed on the inside every time he saw her hugging one of them as she studied or coded. Sometimes he laughed on the outside too, the jerk. She usually threw whatever was in her hand at his head. Usually it was pens. Not that he cared. The big dork even kept the stuffed pink elephant she’d trolled him with on the couch in the living room, front and center. He introduced Dumbo by name to anyone who came over and nobody was allowed to touch him but Oliver. 

Felicity would steal him and carry him around just to get on his nerves.

She celebrated her seventeenth birthday with Tommy and Oliver. They had dinner together and then took her out barhopping. She met a lot of Harvard jerks that night, who talked to her like she needed shit explained to her, but the girls were nicer. She flirted with at least three who really seemed to like flirting back, and that part was awesome. 

She still took on more than she could chew when it came to her studies, but she loved finding out that it wasn’t like that at all. That she  _ could _ handle it. That she could come on top of it. It was such a thrill, finding out that her limits were not really her limits. She organized and made timetables and filed a request to take on two majors the moment she started her second semester, because  _ yes _ , Felicity did know exactly what she wanted. She didn’t make nearly as many friends as perhaps she should have, but who cared? She wasn’t alone. 

No, she really wasn’t. 

“ _Oh_ _my god_!” Felicity yelped, hands fluttering over her heart, barely holding in a scream at finding Oliver Queen laying on her carpet, an hour past midnight. 

She’d known he was in the apartment, because when she walked to the coffeemaker to prep it for tomorrow at 7 am, she saw that it had already been set. Tommy was away for the weekend visiting Laurel, so unless a particularly thoughtful robber had broken in, the only explanation was that Oliver was home. 

But she didn’t expect to find him in  _ her _ room! 

Oliver groaned and threw his arm over his eyes. She turned the light off. Her hand shook a little because of the fright, but she calmed down with deep breaths. 

“If one day I die of a heart attack, I swear you’ll be the first person I’m going to haunt.” She hissed. Oh she was so  _ tired _ , she didn’t have the energy for this at all.

“Sorry.” 

Felicity let both her bags drop to the ground and rolled her shoulders to relieve the ache.

“Couldn’t find your room?” She asked in a whisper as she knelt down next to him.

Oliver whined. “Your carpet’s more comfortable.”

Felicity rolled her eyes. Oliver was the cuddly kind of drunk – she’d found that out awhile ago, but usually he hogged her blankets, not her carpet. She poked at his shoulder with a finger and he didn’t even seem to feel it.

“Wow… how drunk are you right now?” 

He smiled without opening his eyes. “Well, before there were two of you, so I’d say pretty drunk.”

“Huh. Isn’t it a bit early in the night for that?”

“Started early.”

She sighed. “Figures.”

“Y’sound tired.” 

Felicity sighed and flopped on the carpet too, side by side with him, staring at the moonlit patterns on the dark ceiling. Her back ached from being curved over books for the last eleven hours and she was just  _ so _ drained that she felt a little numb. The only upside to this whole day had been that she’d gone into it braless.

“I’m exhausted.” A moment more lying there and she might just fall asleep. “Huh, you were right, this carpet is comfy.”

It wasn’t really, but she was tired enough to sleep on it anyway which was probably Oliver’s logic too. Oliver moved to his side and the plush toy he was using as a pillow farted. 

Felicity melted into giggles. “Are you using Dumbo as a pillow?”

He just  hummed. 

“On behalf of all the Farting Stuffed Toys Association, I am offended.”

“I’ll send an apology note.”

Felicity hummed, lids her lids feeling heavier every time she tried to open them. She felt her limbs get heavy and she was almost half asleep when she felt like she was falling and jolted awake again, only to find herself dozing on her carpet next to a drunk Oliver Queen. 

“Wow, no, no.” Floor-sleeping was a bad, bad decision that she would regret in the morning. Felicity pulled herself up and pushed at Oliver’s shoulder.  “Oliver, get up.” 

“Hmm no.”

“Get up, come on. You can sleep on my bed and I’ll take yours.” 

“You said we weren’t ‘llowed to pass out on your bed.”

“I’ll make an exception for one time.  _ This _ one time.” She took his hand and pulled. “Come on.”

“Nope. ’m fine here.”

“Trust me, the hangover tomorrow will be punishment enough without neck cramps from weird sleeping positions.”

He giggled. “Sleeping positions.” 

He slurred his S-s a little bit and it was kind of funny.

“Yes, dirty, I know. Get up.” 

He sighed, then peeled his eyes open and gave her this stupid puppy-eyed look that made him look twelve. “Will you give me one of your blankets?”

“Nice of you to ask this time.” 

“I like the orange one.”

“The one with the pink polka-dots or the one with the yellow stripes?”

“Yellow stripes.”

“I’m using that one.”

“ _ Felicity _ …” He whined and she finally gave in with a laugh.

“Fine, fine, you can have it.” 

Oliver managed to scrape himself off the carpet and get on his feet, groaning at the effort. He wobbled and Felicity slipped under one of his arms, throwing it around her shoulders to support some of his weight for the three steps it would take him to reach her bed. He leaned into her a little too much though, and Felicity grunted under his weight. 

“Geez you’re heavy. Are you sure this is all muscle?”

His chest rumbled with low laughter. “You calling me fat?”

“I’m calling you drunk.”

He found his feet then and all of a sudden pulled her close, holding her tight with the arm he’d thrown around her shoulders. She thought she felt him drop a kiss somewhere along the top of her head too. 

It was sweet and unexpected, and Felicity didn’t know what to make of it, because the next moment he’d flopped on her bed and rolled, hugging her pillow under his head and smothering half his face against it and taking a big breath.

“Sounded like fat to me.”

“ _ So _ sensitive.” She drawled, tucking her orange blanket he’d wanted around his shoulders.

“I try not to show it.”

She shook her head. “Shut up and go to sleep Queen, geez.”

He chuckled. “Always have to have the last word.”

“I do not!”

She really did though, it was a compulsion. Oliver snorted as if he knew it. 

With the streetlight and the moonlight coming in through the window just over the bed, Felicity could see his face fairly clearly. She looked at him for a few more minutes, feeling a frown coming over her face, as her thoughts turned. But then shook her head, called herself stupid and got up. 

She dragged her feet to her cupboard, changed into her comfiest cotton PJs and then used what was left of her energy to walk to Oliver’s room and slip between the covers of his bed. She squirmed a little until she felt comfortable, expecting it to take her a while to fall asleep because  it took her ages to get used to a new bed. But she must have been really burned out, because she didn’t even realize she’d closed her eyes until she opened them the next morning. And though she’d always felt weird about sleeping in other people’s beds, when she woke up to the familiar scent Oliver’s favorite aftershave and freshly made coffee, she smiled.

-

“Why don’t you ever call me Ollie?”

Felicity turned to him, confusion visible in the line of her frown.

“What?”

“You call me Queen and you call me Oliver and that’s it. And I was just wondering.”

“Is this a trick question?”

He shook his head. “Just a question.”

Felicity pulled her feet off the coffee table and folded them beneath her, turning to look at him. 

“Your family calls you Ollie. Tommy, Thea, Laurel. Even Sara.”

“Yeah, so?” 

He really didn’t seem to get it, did he?

“ _ So _ it seemed like it was ‘friends only’ kinda thing and I didn’t really know you. And then I sort of thought that you didn’t really like me, so it would have felt weird, like overstepping or something.” She said, hands gesturing in front of her. “And after  _ that, _ I was sort of used to calling you Oliver, so it stuck.” 

He didn’t say anything, just kept looking at her, so she finally prodded him. “What?”

“It’s not that I didn’t like you.”

Felicity raised one eyebrow at him. “No?”

He looked away from her and back to the Fellowship of the Ring onscreen, his face unreadable. “I was more worried about Tommy.” 

Felicity smiled. “’Cause you thought me and my mom would be temporary, and then we’d leave and he’d lose a family all over again. Is that it?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“You hated having to share Tommy with me, just admit it.” She said around a laugh and Oliver huffed, shifting in his seat. She could tell even through the light of the TV that he was blushing. 

“You noticed that, huh.” 

“Yup. Which is why I didn’t hog him  _ all _ the time.” But she was teasing now, cause as long as they were getting things out in the open, they might as well say everything, right. 

“Well, first you take over my sister, then my best friend. It’s a wonder i trust you at all, at this point.”

Felicity gasped. “Oliver Queen! Were you jealous?”

He hit her with one of the pillows he’d been leaning against and Felicity squealed. 

“Shut up.” But he was smiling. 

-

When Oliver dropped out of Harvard, Felicity had a moment of blind fear that Tommy would leave too, to go wherever Oliver went, and that she was going to be left all alone in a huge apartment and a really cold city. 

But Tommy didn’t leave and in the end, though Oliver jumped over to the Northwestern, he still ended up at their apartment more often than not. 

Sometimes he and Tommy partied until morning, sometimes they holed up in the apartment and kept her company, or picked her up at the library and drove around for awhile. Oliver always seemed as cheerful as ever, like nothing at all bothered him, but sometimes he’d be quiet for hours, and Felicity worried a little. Maybe. 

She tried talking to him a few times. Sometimes he talked back, sometimes he deflected. 

He always seemed happy to see her though, and always made coffee for her before he left, because he knew she liked his best, though she’d never admitted it.

-

She spent the summer after her freshman year traveling around Starling with her mother having brunch every day at a different restaurant, going out with Sara in different clubs and bouncing from her house to Queen Manor and back again. 

Oliver didn’t really like going to the beach, so she and Thea settled for floating in the Queen’s swimming pool, soaking in the sun. Oliver didn’t swim either – he hated it actually - but he did hang around sometimes, watching her and Thea fool around in the water, trying to dodge the splashes they sent his way every now and then. 

One day she dragged him to her garage at the back of the Merlyn estate, and showed him her grandpa’s 1980 Ducati 900SS, just to enjoy the stupidly surprise look on his face.

“I’ve been trying to fix it up since forever.” she explained as Oliver walked around the bike, looking at it like it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. 

“Yeah, Tommy told me you would hide out here for hours sometimes.”

“I’m not too bad, but I’m not a real mechanic either.” She hopped on one of the wooden tables, swinging her feet back and forth. “But this year I met this guy in Electrical Engineering who was practically a genius and he and a couple of friends of his helped me fix it up.”

Oliver gave her one of this lopsided grins one that didn’t quite look like a smile to Felicity anymore, now that she knew what a reali smile looked like on his face. 

“Oh yeah? Out of the kindness of his heart?”

“Out of his need to impress me, actually. It got him a pretty sweet date, so I’d say we’re even.”

Oliver laughed. “Well, I hope he showed you as good a time as he showed this baby. She looks brand new.”

Felicity made a face. “Nope.  My bike got all the luck.” 

That seemed to get his attention and Felicity immediately regretted ever bringing it up. She got awkward when discussions about boys opened up.

“How so?”

She just shrugged, fiddled with her phone. “I dunno, I just got the feeling that he didn’t even like me that much? He kept interrupting me when I talked and I  _ know _ that I talk a lot, okay, and I go on these weird tangents sometimes and it can get annoying-”

Oliver looked up from where he was couched at the foot of the bike. “It’s not. It’s cute.”

Felicity shifted on her seat uncomfortably. “Yeah, if you say so.”

“I do.”

The way he made it sound so final made her roll her eyes and finally smile a little. “Thanks. My mom thinks so too.”

Oliver smiled. “Did you pretend to go to the bathroom and jump out the window in the back?”

This time she laughed. “I should have, but no. He just seemed really impatient to get out of the restaurant. So we did, but that didn’t change anything. And he kept talking about his major and stuff, which was cool, but he also looked at me like I didn’t know what I was talking about when I tried to give an opinion. Yeah, it was just bad.”

“I hope you gave him a kick in the nuts instead of a goodbye kiss.”

She snorted but he seemed actually serious about that. “No. but there was no goodnight kiss either. I kind of want the people I kiss to at least like me, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Oliver said softly, coming to stand against the table, close enough that his arm brushed with hers. Touch was his way of providing comfort, usually, since he had no idea how to go about it otherwise. 

It was sweet, Felicity thought. Oliver could be really sweet, sometimes.

“Didn’t you have two of these?” Oliver nodded towards the bike. “I think Tommy might have said that to me once, but I also might have been high.” 

“I did. The other one was my dad’s though, so I broke it down and donated the parts.”

It didn’t seem to surprise him as much as she thought it would. He still asked though. “Why’d you do that?” 

Felicity scoffed. 

“’Cause fuck him, that’s why.” She turned to him with a big fake smile on her face. “Wanna try it out for a ride?”

He said yes, of course. 

It became their thing, that summer. ( _ strange, that they had a thing. she never thought of it that way, but then again, she never really stopped to think about it either. it just happened. _ ) Instead of car-rides to the jetty, they’d take the bike and drive even further out, sit somewhere quiet and just stay there for a while, when they both got tired of the city and wanted to feel like they were escaping, but without going too far. It was an illusion and Felicity could always see through it clearly. Her thoughts were always with her, but she did command them to give her a rest, every now and then, when she needed one. Usually when she had company it was easier. But it was different for Oliver: while Felicity only needed a respite, Oliver was the one that kept chasing an escape and stopping halfway.

But they never noticed the difference when they were together. 

-

“Why do you keep dropping out?” 

Oliver flinched. “Whoa Smoak, don’t hold back on my account.”

“I hold back on no one’s account.” didn’t he know that by now? 

By the look on his face and his faint smile, he did. “I’ve noticed.”

The sun was setting, painting the trees around Queen Manor with gold. the rays reflecting off the surface of the pool. They were both sitting on the grass, playing Go Fish, which was not a difficult game, so it didn’t explain how hard Oliver was concentrating on his cards.

“Well?”

“Maybe I just can’t keep up, ever thought about that?” Oliver challenged. 

“I did.” 

The unaffected look on his face slipped and Felicity knew she’d touched a nerve. 

“Called bullshit on it about two seconds after I thought about it. I know you’re smart.  _ And  _ I know that you’ve passed every exam you’ve sustained with flying colors, so what gives?”

His face fell. “What? How do you… Did Tommy tell you that?” He was frowning and it was one of the rare times he actually looked upset.

“No.”

“No, he didn’t because he couldn’t have. Nobody knows my grades.”

“I… heard your dad talking about it to your mom.” Felicity admitted, feeling the heat crawling up her neck. 

“Snooping, Smoak? You know what they say about people who eavesdrop.”

“I didn’t drop any eaves!” She protested. “I just… couldn’t help it?”

“Ah.” He said then and looked away, staring out to the water. “They were fighting again, huh.”

“It was kinda loud. Thea was by the pool so she didn’t hear anything.” She hurried to explain. “But I wanted some water and when I passed through the living room I heard them.”

Oliver didn’t say anything but his eyes were narrow and his lips thin with anger.

“I took Thea out for ice-cream right after and invited her to stay over that night.”

Oliver let out a long breath. “Thank you.”

“It’s fine.”

“I don’t like university, and I like living without options even less.” he said quietly after a pause so long that Felicity had thought he wouldn’t answer at all. 

“What does that mean?” 

He huffed an unhappy laugh. “It’s a dick move isn’t it? Rich white boy complaining about his lack of options.” He dragged one hand down his face flopped back in the grass, closing his eyes. “But all I see is one door and I’m being shoved through it.”

“So you’re doing what? Stalling?”

He gave a half-hearted shrug. 

“You know you could just tell him to leave you alone right?” Oliver looked at her like he didn't understand her at all, so Felicity pushed on. “You could just tell him that you’re going to do whatever  _ you  _ want. Change majors, take the classes you like, don’t go to college at all. Get a job till you figure out what you actually want. I know your dad probably loves thinking this as much as Malcolm does, but he can’t really  _ make _ you do anything, Oliver. That’s the biggest lie ever.” 

She couldn’t decide if the smile on his face right then was more sad or bitter, or an even mix of both. 

“Maybe. But not all of us are like  _ you _ , Smoak.” He said flatly. 

It sounded rather cold though, in that icily contained tone that he probably learned from his mother, and harsh a way she’d only ever heard him sound with other people.

“Okay.” Felicity hated how small her voice sounded, but he kinda hurt her feelings a little bit. Suddenly being out here alone with him made her feel really stupid. 

But a moment later she saw him shift from the corner of her eye and felt his hand on her shoulder, warm and heavy. When she looked up he was just looking at her, lips upturned and eyes soft. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I actually mean it as a compliment.”

Felicity held his eyes for long moments before she nodded. She didn’t really believe him but that was her issue, not his. 

-

Anyone who knew how to pay attention to details could tell you that, for all his loud personality and ability to become the heart of any party, when he was alone, Oliver could actually become the quietest spot in the room. Felicity knew that already, but what she found out that summer was that his moods could get a lot darker than she’d thought possible. That he started ripping his own life apart sometimes, so that he could take a good look at the insides, talking about his parents and their expectations, wondering why they were so judgmental and if he was exactly like them without even knowing it. 

(‘ _ Don’t be absurd. You’re  _ nothing _ like your dad and… ok so  _ maybe _ you’ve got that freaky ‘ _ did you, now? _ ’ glare like Moira, but that’s about it!’  _

_ ‘I do?’  _

_ ‘Um, kinda? You both have that cold-and-intimidating thing going on, but  _ you  _ usually do it like you’re laughing at whoever you are looking at.’ _

_ ‘What?’  _

_ ‘Yeah. Like they’re beneath you.’ _

_ ‘Huh. That’s… not cool.’ _

_ ‘Not for people at the wrong end of it, no. Kind of your dickiest move, actually. _ ’

_ ‘Wow, dont spare my feelings or anything.’  _

_ ‘What’s the point of sparing your feelings about this? Don’t you want the truth?’  _

_ ‘Yeah, I do actually.’ _ )

That maybe it was as simple as not knowing what he wanted. That maybe some people were never meant to find a purpose, something that meant anything to them. That they were meant to spend their lives passing out on the carpets of people who actually did.

He’d give her this wistful look then, and talk as if he was just thinking out loud: ‘ _ You really don’t have that problem though, do you? _ ’

He’d sounded so sad that Felicity had felt like giving him a hug. But she’d also been angry as hell at him for thinking so low of himself. ( _ She’d been way out of her depth and neither new it _ .)

‘Ok, so I know what I’m good at - and I’m lucky, ‘cause I also happen to  _ love _ doing what I’m good at. But I don’t know what I’m gonna do with myself after MIT either, Oliver. Life is not supposed to be all planned out. There’s nothing wrong with that.’ 

He’d given her the most miserable smile in the world, with a soft ‘ _ guess so _ ’. 

He’d turned it into the bright, fakest smile she’d seen on his face, gave her a cheery ‘ _ goodnight _ ’ and hadn’t come back home for a week. Until he made an appearance on TMZ for being so drunk in public that he’d went and peed on a cop car.

For about two more years Felicity wouldn’t be able to get rid of the gnawing doubt that it had been something she’d said that made him spiral that way.

-

It was that summer that Felicity started to paint her nails black and realized that she actually liked it. Sara was very enthusiastic about the shift in her style and Thea wanted to go all out and buy a whole new wardrobe. Felicity didn’t like to go that far, she was still figuring out what she liked, but she definitely considered some new clothes and trinkets, and even bought a black bikini that she was too embarrassed to wear anywhere around people. 

The truth was that summer really freaked her out in some ways, though she couldn’t seem to fully grasp why. 

There was something so off with her mother, Felicity could see it, but nobody else seemed to be able to. Her dresses were cheerier than ever and her smiles so bright they must hurt her face, but there was just something so… so vacant about her eyes. Sometimes she Felicity could see she was just about to cry and would blink fast to hold it back. And after she would just wave it away and tell her that she was fine and nothing was wrong, no matter how much Felicity insisted. Her mother had never been the kind of woman to change her dresses five times before she found the right one either. She’d always known what she liked and never been shy about taking it, so the change confused Felicity to no end. 

And then there was that time when they were going out for dinner and Malcolm asked her ‘ _ is this is really what you want to wear’ _ in that  _ tone  _ of his, and Donna had gone back and changed immediately, leaving Felicity feeling capable of bloody murder.

That night, when she’d asked for a second helping of pasta, Malcolm had smiled that serpentine smile of his and asked her if she was sure she was still hungry. Felicity had taken a good long look into his eyes before saying a decided yes. She had  _ two  _ more helpings just to spite him and didn’t even regret it despite the stomach ache.

Every time she tried talking to her mother about any of it, though, Donna got angry and defensive. The more Felicity tried, the more distant her mother became and eventually the brunches stopped and they started arguing. 

In September, Felicity left two weeks earlier than she had to, just to get away from it all. Family was easier to love when it was far away.

-

Felicity was flopped over the side of the couch. She looked like hell, her hair all a mess of black curls obscuring half her face, pale as death and with a big gauze patched on her forehead. She hadn’t showered yet so there was a thin layer of dusn on her clothes and two little dots of blood just on her collarbone. Out of everything else, those two little dots of red against her skin were what made Oliver the most nervous so he avoided looking at them. 

Whatever he felt, Felicity probably felt worse. And yet, for all of her exhaustion, out of the three of them she seemed the most relaxed one. 

Tommy was so tense he was sitting ramrod straight at the edge of the couch and Oliver wasn’t exactly having a good time either. He knew all Felicity cared about was the university and it wasn’t like they were kicking her out, though Malcolm and Donna probably would have to make some kind of ‘donation’ to help facilitate the  _ forgetting _ of this incident. 

Maybe that was the thought that had put the thunderous frown on Felicity’s face. For a kid who hated being alone, she hated depending on anyone for anything just as much. 

There was something going on with her, Oliver could tell, but she wouldn’t talk to anyone about it. Not to him – which had hurt his feelings more than he’d expected – and not to Tommy, or Thea, or Laurel. He’d even asked Sara just to be sure and she had no idea either. He was worried about her, but didn’t know what to do about it. And after what happened tonight, he also got the first taste of what his parents must have felt when he pulled all the stupid dangerous shit that he had in the past – and still might still revisit. 

Well, at least they would have, if they had cared. And Oliver did care. 

He crouched in front of her. “Hey.”

Felicity peeled her eyes open. They were supposed to wake her up every two hours tonight. She didn’t have a concussion but that was still a head wound she was sporting and those were never fun.

“Brought you some water.”

She righted herself on the couch. “Thank you.”

She took small sips, like a little bird, and then handed the glass back over to him. She wouldn’t look at either him or Tommy in the face and had threaded her fingers through the little hole on her right sleeve so many times that it had ripped. 

“I-” her voice broke, but she cleared her throat and tried again. “I’m really sorry.”

Tommy sighed and slid down the couch, put an arm around her shoulders. She went with him, laying her head against his chest, though she still wouldn’t look up from her lap. 

“It’s okay, Felicity.”

“You don’t have to say that.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Oliver said. “But it’s still okay.”

She sniffed, passed a hand under her eyes to wipe away her tears. The sight of that little gesture, both helpless and annoyed, made Oliver feel like he’d been kicked in the ribs.  

_ Jesus.  _

“I thought it would be fun. I didn’t think everyone would freak out about it so much.”

“Nobody’s freaking out.” Oliver said, and it was actually true, for once. “The only freaking out that happened was was when your Dean was worried you might be hurt. But you’re not. You’re gonna be fine, so everything’s fine.” 

“That easy huh?” She said, finally looking at him, the the hint of a smile on her face.

His relief at her eyes finally meeting his was so palpable he couldn't help but smile back. “Guess so.”

The door burst open and Tommy jerked in surprise. He looked over his shoulder to  see Malcolm stride in, black coat floating behind him. Felicity though just sighed and reached for the painkillers on the table. Getting a lecture now wasn’t the best time, but one look at Malcolm and Oliver knew that that wouldn’t really save her from one.

“Well, it seems that being around these two has finally rubbed off on you.” 

Felicity sighed, didn’t even look at him. “Hello to you too, Malcolm.”

“May we have the room?” Malcolm asked through gritted teeth. “Felicity and I need to have a discussion in private.” 

She groaned. “Why, Malcolm, did I do something wrong?”

Tommy looked at Felicity both in reproach, and to judge if she really wanted them to leave, but she was too busy popping another pill in her mouth. 

Malcolm’s sigh was pure exasperation. “And just what are you taking?”

“Roofies.” 

“Aspirins.” Tommy corrected, narrowing his eyes at her as he got up. 

Felicity rolled her eyes and headed for the other side of the living room brushing by Malcolm without even looking at him. She got herself another glass of water and washed her hands calmly. 

Oliver and Tommy moved themselves to Oliver’s room, but Tommy didn’t fully close the door after himself, accidentally on purpose, so Malcolm’s voice still reached them. 

“Please sit down.”

“I’d rather stand.”

“Sit.”

“No.”

There was a tense moment of silence and Oliver wondered if Felicity really did think of annoying Malcolm as an extreme sport she liked to indulge in from time to time.

“I try to understand you, I truly do, but sometimes your behavior just baffles me.” malcolm started, contained and cold. “I understand living the full ‘student’ experience. I might even tolerate you being around with these…  _ street-rats _ , which is worse, but getting caught up in their stupidity? You are supposed to be smarter than this.”

“I would take you more seriously if your objection to my friends wasn’t their bank account.” Felicity deadpanned. 

“Do  _ not _ you put words in my mouth young lady.” Malcolm warned, his voice deepening and Oliver saw Tommy tense even more. He was standing by the door, as if he was prepared to go through it at any moment. 

“Breaking and entering? Grand theft auto?”

“Oh my god, we just move the car fifteen yards!” Felicity protested.

Well… technically she and a couple of others had dismantled the Dean’s car and reassembled it in the Physics building, but you know - details.  

From an outside perspective, Oliver thought the whole thing was pretty funny, but Tommy wasn’t as amused now as he’d been when they’d found out. And that amusement had died down pretty soon after they’d had to go get Felicity at the hospital, because she’d run from the guards of the building, slipped and almost cracked her head open.

It seemed even less funny now with Malcolm yelling in the other room.

“I don’t care if you’d driven the thing off a cliff! If you want to be stupid enough to pull this juvenile shenanigans,  _ fine _ ! But at least I expect you not to get caught! How do you explain that?”

For the first time, Felicity hesitated. It showed even in her voice when she finally did give an answer. “It was a mistake, ok.”

“A mistake? That is what you want to call it? A  _ mistake _ .”

“Well I tried calling it  _ Al _ , but it will only answer to mistake.”

Oliver huffed a muted laugh and Tommy dropped his head in his hand. She didn’t relent for a second, did she?

“You think this is funny? Should your mother and I now expect for you to drop out and start hopping around colleges, leaving behind a trail of wasted potential and disappointment.”

Tommy looked up at the same moment that Oliver looked away.

“Hey! Don’t you  _ dare _ …” Felicity lowered her voice and Oliver would bet that had been deliberate. But he could still hear her hissing anger. “ _ I _ decide what I do and how I waste my potential and I am none of your business, Malcolm.”

“Your mother would be so disappointed.” Even Malcolm sounded disappointed and about as sad as Oliver had ever heard him. 

Felicity didn’t have a quick answer for that one, but she found one eventually. “My mother can tell me herself, if that really is the case. You can leave now.” 

“Do not presume to tell me what I can and cannot do, young lady.” 

Oliver’s head snapped up and this time, he felt the way Tommy had probable been feeling since they stepped into this room: like he was seriously thinking about getting back out there and putting himself between Felicity and Malcolm. 

It wasn’t the words, exactly. It was the way Malcolm said them. 

Like there was supposed to be some kind of action implied after them. 

Felicity though – she either missed it or didn’t give a fuck.

“Right back at ya, Mister Merlyn.” 

“You  _ selfish _ girl! I fly over half the country to get you out of trouble and  _ this _ is the treatment I get for my trouble?”

“I didn’t ask you to come here!” Felicity yelled over him, her anger reaching an explosive pitch Oliver didn't know she was capable of. “Oliver and Tommy got me out of trouble, and  _ I _ will see myself through whatever comes next. I don’t  _ need _ your help and I don’t  _ want _ it, because your gross way of hanging your so called ‘ _ good deeds _ ’ over people’s head makes me  _ sick _ .”

The silence was so thick Oliver thought he could actually hear Felicity’s ragged breathing.

“Now, I’m going to bed. You can stay or you can leave, it’s not really my problem.”

They heard the door of her room slam shut and then the door of the apartment slam shut even harder. 

In the silence that came after, Tommy let go of a long breath. 

“Wow…”

Yeah, Oliver thought. ‘Wow’ was a about right. 

-

Oliver’s first semester at Boston University – his fourth Alma Mater in two years - started better than usual. He’d actually found that studying didn’t bore him to tears or require about 10 times the energy that everything else did, when his tutor knew what he was doing. 

The old dude with a beard thicker than his dad’s, was a alright, and his psychology class that Oliver took on just for kicks, was actually pretty fun as well.  He kept calling Oliver a kinesthetic learner and coming up with the weirdest kind of ways to help him study. When he’d suggested doodling and studying with someone he liked, Oliver had thought the old fart was out of it. But he’d also said that Oliver didn’t need to try  _ harder _ , that he just needed to try  _ different _ , so Oliver thought there was no harm in trying.

When he managed to give three midterms and not fail a single one, Oliver felt like he might just conquer the world. 

It should have told him something that the first person he’d wanted to tell was Felicity, but at the time it didn’t register, because right after that came wanting to tell Tommy too, and it had been like that for years. 

-

Oliver leaned back against the chair and glanced around the apartment, all set up for their poker night. Finn and the guys were on their way.

“We really need to think of something though. It’s her eighteenth birthday – it  _ has _ to be something big.”

Tommy snickered and passed him the beers. “Felicity doesn’t like ‘big’. She gets uncomfortable with ‘big’.”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “Fine, that it has to be special.”

Tommy closed the fridge with his foot, giving him a strange look as he made his way to the table, as if he was confused and couldn’t figure Oliver’s shit out all of a sudden. 

“What?” Oliver snapped.

Tommy’s eyebrows pulled a little but then he shook it off. “Nah, nothing. And Ollie - chill. It’s December – her birthday is in March, for fucks sake.”

“Yeah whatever. You know she plans everything out months in advance. We don’t even know what she  _ wants  _ to do for her birthday! Isn’t she dating some fucker from her Electronic Engineering class? We need to book the date.”

“Book the date?” Tommy laughed and then turned his surprised smile to Oliver who had just sat on the couch and lifted his feet on the coffee-table. “How the hell do you remember who she’s dating, anyway? She mentioned it like – once.”

“I remember stuff.” Oliver defended. “I remember you told me you were getting a blue scarf for Laurel and ended up getting a yellow one.”

Tommy flipped him the bird. 

“And isn’t he supposed to be like, twenty one years old? Don’t you think that’s weird. Come one, you know it is.”

“Felicity can watch out for herself, Oliver.” Though Tommy didn't look any more comfortable than Oliver was with the thought of his still-seventeen-year-old stepsister dating someone almost their age. “And she’s not gonna thank either one of us for sticking our noses in her business and you know it.” 

Oliver knew that obviously. But he didn’t have to like it. 

-

He was on the phone with his mother, but even through that and the guys making a hell of a lot of noise – five dudes playing poker in a room was never a quiet idea – Oliver still heard her stumbling against the door and her muffled, colorful cursing as she tried to undo the locks. 

“Okay. No mom, I have to go.” Oliver tried to cutit short. “No. Yes, I did… Yeah, me too.”

Felicity stumbled inside, pushing the door open with her hip, arms full of books, and for a blink-and-miss moment Oliver almost didn’t recognize her. 

_ Oh… ok! _

He’d never seen her wearing so much black since he’d known her. It was a bit jarring.

And different.

They hadn’t had the chance to meet that much lately, because he’d been busy with actual studying, in which he was being efficient for once, and she was in the middle of her second year and had just started and internship in Wayne Corp’s Boston Offices, but  _ still! _ Oliver hadn’t thought it was possible for someone to change so much in four weeks! 

( _ he still thought that her taking the job at Wayne’s was a mental ‘fuck you’ to both his parents and hers, and he couldn't help but like her all the more for it. Sara said that Felicity could have more balls than him and Tommy combined, something both he and Tommy agreed on _ .) 

“The delightful lady has returned!” Finn yelled just as Felicity dropped a couple of the books she’d been carrying and swore through her teeth again.

“Finn, how unfortunate. If you have gone anywhere near my computers, I’ll break your fingers.” she deadpanned as she set the books down on the table close to the door and crouched to pick up the ones she’d dropped. 

Oliver got to it just as she did, and when Felicity looked up, the surprise melted the annoyance right off her expression, like snow. It took her a blink or two to get over it, and then she  _ smiled _ so wide that her dimples showed, and Oliver realized, right when she mouthed ‘ _ Hi _ ’ at him, that he’d  _ missed _ her. 

He watched her take off her gloves and leather jacket, the sweater beneath it, coming up in a faded Metallica T-shirt, and he couldn’t get over how much he’d missed her… He’d _really_ _fucking missed her_ and he hadn’t even known it until right that moment when he saw her again, because he’d never in his life missed anyone like that. He hadn’t known how to give a name to the oppressive feeling that had taken residence on top of his lungs for weeks.

Oliver had almost forgotten that he was still on the phone with his mother, but it was the mention she made of his father that got him to pay attention again. 

“ _ What _ ? No, don’t tell dad. Just  _ don’t _ , alright.” He added, and his frustration was so transparent that his mother relented. “I gotta go now. Yeah okay.” 

He turned to Felicity. “My mother says hello.”

Felicity leaned into the receiver. “Hello Mrs. Queen.” 

Oliver bit back his smile. “Bye mom.”

He hung up and he just sort of stood there looking at her, feeling a strange sort of uncertainty come over him. 

“Hey stranger.” She said, poking at his chest with her index finger. “Been some time since you showed your stupid mug around here.”

“Been busy.”

Her eyebrows rose high on her forehead. 

“Oh, have you? Did we fall down your list of priorities?” she put both hands over her heart and pouted. “You hurt my feelings, Queen.”

“Oh, you’ve grown feelings now?”

She snorted. “Tried to. They withered.”

“Too cold in Boston, I bet.”

Felicity slapped his arm and Oliver winced. 

“Ouch.”

“Don’t ‘ouch’ at me! Did you fall on some ditch or something?” she pulled at his thumb to make her point and he winced, just to tease her. “The explanation why coul couldn't even call better be that you broke all your fingers and toes and bit through your tongue, Queen.” 

“I had finals, Smoak! Papers that needed delivering.”

The teasing glint in her eyes fell away, open anticipation taking over her expression. She didn’t ask immediately, just bit her lip and nodded, pretending she didn’t want to know as much as she did, so that he could tell her himself. 

Which was just… such a Felicity thing to do, and for some reason it just made him smile wider. 

So they stood there staring each other down, Oliver counting backwards in his head to see how long she would last. 

He got as far as 8 before she slapped his chest with both hands. “Oh,  _ come on! _ Just tell me! I  _ hate _ mysteries.”

He laughed, pulling his arms against his chest to defend himself from her. “Passed all of them and I’m on time with two of my papers. I’ll have to push back the deadline of the third, but the professor’s ok with it.”

Felicity squealed, jumping up and down. “ _ Yes _ ! Yes, yes, yes! I knew you could do it! I  _ knew _ it!”

When she stepped towards him it felt natural to wrap her in and hug her tight. 

“I know you did.” 

She laughed as she stepped back, hands squeezing his biceps, flushed with happiness and smiling brighter than ever. 

“So what are Tommy’s strays up to here anyway?” She asked looking around him. “Oh, poker night, huh?”

“Yup. Wanna join in?”

“Hey Queen! You know the rules: No chicks allowed.” Finn yelled from the living-room and Felicity rolled her eyes. 

She swished further in the apartment, Oliver following in tow. 

“Hi Felicity.” Robert greeted with a wink.

“Hi losers. Hey Tommy.”

“You hurt my feelings, Smoak.” Robert teased.

“You mistake me for someone who cares.”

She sat down on the chair Oliver pulled for her and straightened, waiting for her cards. 

“You heard me.” Finn warned her without any heat. 

Oliver gave him a much more serious silent warning, but he knew it wouldn’t mean anything to Finn.

“I did. But seeing that I’m a human being and not a  _ chick _ , I don’t think that’ll be a problem.” Felicity said in that sweet way of her that usually preceded a ‘fuck you’ of some kind.

Finn smiled wide. “My apologies. No ladies allowed in the game.”

Felicity tilted her head, eyes wide in fake innocence. “Is that a poker rule, or just a general life motto of yours?” 

“Both, I believe.” Finn answered with a smirk just as Oliver took his own seat between Felicity and Tommy. 

“Well, seeing as you’re in  _ my _ house, you follow  _ my _ rules. And  _ my _ rules say I don’t give a fuck about  _ your _ rules, poker or otherwise. So deal me in, Cindy.” She ordered and threw a wad of cash on the table.

Robert snickered and Colin outright laughed. 

Finn just sighed. “How many times will I have to apologize for mistaking your name a couple of times, before you start calling me by mine? Ballpark figure.”

“Just once. But you’ll have to mean it.”

“So, never then?”

“Guess so, Susannah.” Felicity said shortly as she pulled her black hair into a ponytail. She’d straightened it, which was also new, but it was curling again because of the humidity outside.

“Do you even know how to play?” Finn asked, though he was dealing her in. 

“I can handle myself.” 

“Go Fish doesn’t count, sweet-cheeks.” Robert said with his full on ‘flirt’ face, complete with smirk and wink. 

Oliver felt his hand tightening around his corona and he had the very immediate and violent urge to chuck it at Robert’s face.

Felicity narrowed her eyes at him, the dark lining around them making her glare even sharper. “Shut your hole and  _ play _ , limp-dick.” 

And with that the game started. 

Felicity swiped Oliver’s half-finished beer – she didn’t like beer, it was why she always stole the last three inches of his - so he took a fresh one for himself. By the end of the first hand, Felicity’s chips had dwindle and Finn and Robert were having the time of their lives teasing her but she seemed like she didn’t hear them at all. After Tommy dealt to begin the second round, she seemed to get serious. Three hands later, and she had won back all her chips and annihilated the stacked chips of the others’ with a pair of Aces, a straight, and the high card.

“Fucking hell on a carrot!” Finn whined. “Beginner’s luck sucks!”

Felicity just grinned and stacked her chips in even little towers. Tommy was enjoying the hell out of this and kept laughing every time she swept the table. Felicity’s eyes were bright with excitement and she hadn’t stopped smiling since she started winning, but despite that it was impossible to see through her during the game. 

Four hands later, she had gone through a glass of wine that Tommy got her, and narrowed her eyes at the last man on the table that hadn’t folded. 

“Come on Queen, your call. You gonna put in like a man, or what?”

Oliver sighed. 

“Fuck it.” He said and threw in the last of his chips. Tommy clapped and rubbed his hands together, eyes alight. 

“Whatdya got, Queen?”

“Flush!” he smiled, spreading his cards face-up on the table. 

Five pairs of eyes turned to Felicity, who held Oliver’s eyes for a moment longer and then slammed her cards on the table. 

“Read ‘em and weep, weirdoes! Aces and eights!” she said, giggling.

“A full house? What the  _ fuck _ ?” Finn cried. 

Tommy howled with laughter just as disbelieving groans and shouts filled the room. Oliver just looked at her like he’d never seen her before.

“That’s right,” She said, pulling in her chips.

Oliver narrowed his eyes at her, understanding starting to seep in and making him feel like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. “This isn’t just beginner’s luck. You play.”

Felicity pressed her lips together and shrugged, giving him her best wide-and-innocent eyes, an effect somewhat ruined by the fact that she was smiling like a shark. 

Tommy was wiping tears away from his face, trying to calm down, but every now and then barrages of laughter still escaped him.

“You just hustled us!” Robert said, throwing his cards on the table.

“No fucking way!” Collin wailed, standing up and pacing up and down in front of the table.

“Your own fault for assuming, methinks.” Felicity said triumphantly. She’d just shaved them out of three hundred thousand dollars.

“Awesome plan, Queen. Bring a card shark to poker night,” Robert complained, sullen like the sore loser he was.

“I didn’t know!” Oliver said absently, still too surprised to sound like he meant it.

“Bullshit,” Finn called

“I  _ didn’t _ !” Oliver insisted. “Though I’m starting to think Tommy did.”

Tommy, still flushed with laughter, raised his hands up. “I didn’t either. But I had a hunch.”

“You forgot I’m a Vegas girl, Oliver?” Felicity asked him softly.

“You were a  _ kid _ when you left Vegas.” he protested. 

“I grew up in my mom’s casinos, Oliver. Some things stick.” 

“Felicity, my love!” Colin called as he came around to her side and fell to his knees. “Marry me.”

Oliver pushed at him with his foot. “Get the fuck up, idiot.”

Colin ignored him soundly. “My heart is yours, my darling. You are everything I want in a woman, complete with the unexpected but welcome  Evanescence style choices.”

“I… hate to miss out on a potential soulmate like you, Colin, but I’m gonna have to decline.”

“Oh, my poor heart.”

“Sorry.” 

Oliver was just about to grab Colin by the nape and get him up, when his phone rang again. His finger was just over the Ignore button when he saw it was his mother again, and she already knew he was up. He’d promised not to avoid her anymore so he peeled his ass of the chair and sequestered himself to his old room just as Collin started to beg Tommy and Felicity that they take him back as a tenant. 

When he got out five minutes later, Felicity was just coming out of her room. she’d changed into black jeans, boots and a turtleneck, and she was just doing up her ponytail again, high on her head. 

“Hey, where did you disappear to?"

“Long distance phone call.” He said, showing her his phone. 

Her lips were a darker shade of maroon – he noticed that when she smirked at him. "God?"

"Paris."

Her eyes danged with hidden laughter and Oliver felt his stomach do this weird fucking thing, like he’d just missed a step. "God is in Paris?"

" _ No _ . My mother is in Paris."

"Wow, God is your mother?" She walked backwards to the entrance of the apartment, where her boots were. He followed her without realizing what he was doing. "I knew it!"

"Felicity…"

"So God  _ is _ a woman. And your relative, that is so cool.”

“Does she have an off button?” Robert asked.

Oliver threw the phone at his head. 

“Hey! Do  _ not _ abuse innocent tech!” Felicity gasped.

“Right. No worries about my head.” 

“Your head is replaceable, Robert.” Oliver said icily. He was annoyed all of a sudden, though he didn’t really know where it came from. 

“You should totally ask for favors." Felicity continued.

Oliver tilted his head at her, confused. “From Robert?”

“No, from God. Since she’s a relative.” She clarified as she laced up her boots. 

he sighed and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. 

"Though, you already are rich and pretty, so this confirms my suspicion that god is into nepotism as well. Great."

"What's the hurry?" he asked as she zipped up her sweatshirt and he helped her get into her leather jacket.

"I had a commission for someone and they just came through, so I gotta go pick up my stuff.” 

Oliver took a step forward. “Want me to go with you? It’s pretty late. 

“Nah, it’s okay. I know this guy, he’s a friend.And we’re meeting just around the block.” She fixed her loose belt and looked at him through her lashes with a smile. "You think that one time I insulted your mother's draperies will come back to haunt me anytime soon?"

"I'd be prepared if I were you. Stay off any cars, boats, airplanes, just in case she decides to smite you."

"I'll hide in the nearest bathroom for a week, maybe she'll forget about me."

"Doubtful. If it had been  _ Malcolm _ , however…"

She groaned. "Oh, Lucifer save us. Are you staying over tonight?”

Oliver shrugged. He kind felt like getting shitfaced drunk the way he hadn’t in awhile and crawling into the pants of the nearest brunette, actually. That was what he wanted, and the need for it creeping up his back in millipede legs made him feel like shit, for some reason.

“Oh come on,  _ stay _ ! Please? I won’t be long and by the time I come back, the strays will have moved on and we can have wine and popcorns and you can listen to me complain about my internship for hours. It’ll be fun.” 

“Sounds like it.” But his enthusiasm sounded weak even to his own ears. “How was your internship, by the way?”

Felicity rolled her eyes. “I met Max Fuller and spent the next six weeks showering.” 

Oliver grimaced. 

“Come on Queen, stay over.” she coaxed again, gently this time. Her smile fell a little and he could see it in her eyes then, that she’d missed him too, though probably… yeah there was really no way it was the same. “Feels like forever since we actually talked.”

Oliver tilted his head to the side with a smile. “Well since you said ‘please’.”

Her face lit up. “I did, didn’t I.”

“I wish I had recorded it.”

“You should have. You’re not likely to hear it again anytime soon.”

She was just at the door when she turned around and ran into him for an attack hug that lasted too little for him to actually reciprocate it. 

The she ran back to the door, yelling ‘ _ I’ll see you later _ ’ as she closed it behind her. 

-

He wanted to stay. He really,  _ really _ did. He wanted to sit back on the couch with her and talk the way they had that summer and he wanted to know everything he had missed these past few weeks and everything that had changed. He wanted to know how come she dressed all in black and where she’d learned to do her make up like that. He wanted to ask her what was wrong that she seemed so sad sometimes, and so angry other times, what she was hiding and if he could help.

He wanted to stay too much. 

Which was why drank half a bottle of scotch, debating with himself, and then decided he was enough of a shit already and there was really no need to top it off by being a real-life asshole, as well as a recovering fuckup. 

So he left and didn’t even say sorry. He figured she wouldn’t forgive him. As far as he knew, Felicity didn’t forgive people who left. 


	5. calm like a bomb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is unbetaed, so im sorry for the typos.  
> i wanted to post it soon, as a 'happy birthday' to Flavia (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY DEAR FRIEND. this isnt a particularly happy chapter but i didint have time to write more - BUT i *am* writing and i will probably post again sometimes around the end of the week, so wish me luck).

_[pic reference](http://therewas-a-girl.tumblr.com/post/165268016577) for the way i imagined Felicity's dress. _

* * *

 

> _"Do you think you can find the neurons for the fact I hate you? It will depend on how actively emotional the hatred is.  
>  I can do it so coldly you won’t find it I assure you."_
> 
> _\- Alice Notley, 'In the Pines'_

Generally, the way the _male-forties-something-throwing-his-life-away_ was looking at her from two tables down, would have made Felicity mentally cock a pistol at him. However, this time she pretended not to notice and kept sipping her latte. She had more important things to consider – like for example reminding herself not to fiddle with her bag. But knowing that a few thousands of dollars worth of equipment was in there made it difficult.

Also, she was nervous. It wasn’t like Sara to be late.

The little bell on the café’s door chimed and Felicity did her level best not to turn and look. She stared at the glass panel instead and when she caught a flash of blonde hair, she sighed.

“Oh my god did you dye your hair!” Sara whispered fervently as she sat down and reached for Felicity’s coffee, taking a generous sip.

“No.” Felicity tugged the beanie a little lower, wisps of the ridiculously expensive ash-blonde wig falling arrow-straight around her shoulders. “It’s a wig.”

Sara snorted. “I’m sorry I’m late. My dad was being impossible. I had to recruit Laurel to distract him.”

Felicity’s eyes widened. “You didn’t-”

“No, I didn’t give her any details, but it’s not like she doesn’t know.”

“Still-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Sara’s eyes flickered over Felicity’s shoulder. “The weirdo is staring at us like he wants to know what we look naked.”

“I know.”

Though Felicity’s calm tone did not stop Sara from scowling at the man. She kicked Sara’s shin under the table.

“Ow!”

“Don’t do anything to draw attention. You’re memorable enough as it is.”

“Nah, I think the bangs make me a bit more forgettable.” Sara said, shaking her head a little, the wispy hair almost covering her eyes. “They eat half my face.”

Felicity shook her head, still amazed. “I still can’t believe you cut your hair for this.”

“You know me. I go all out.” and just as she said this, Sara lifted her bag. “I got the stuff. Come on.”

They both got up and moved to the bathroom together. Male-forties-something-throwing-his-life-away followed them with his eyes till they disappeared behind the bathroom door.

Sara scowled. “Should have let me throw the mug at his face.”

“Some other time.”

They quickly changed into the clothes Sara had brought, Felicity in one of Sara’s flower-child outfits and Sara in jeans and one of Laurel’s crisp button down shirts, bright blue eyes hidden behind glasses. They got out through the back door of the café and made straight for the building across the street, getting in through the garage. It had taken Felicity all of ten minutes to get the floor plans of the building where her mother’s shrink worked so she knew where she was going. But unfortunately, she didn’t know how to pick locks that weren’t electronic, and in this building there were three of those before you got to the electric room in the basement. Which was where Sara came in. Felicity dearly wished it wouldn’t… but that hadn’t stopped her from asking.   

As Sara crouched down and started fiddling with the locks, Felicity checked her table to make sure the security camera down here was still in a loop.

“How did you learn how to do this?”

Sara tilted her head up to give Felicity a brilliant smile. “I associate with delinquents.”

The door clicked open.

“You seriously gotta teach me this someday.” Felicity said as they skittered inside silently.

“I’m wondering if Laurel would disapprove or find it hilarious.”

“Laurel should kill me for getting you into this!” Felicity reiterated but Sara only snorted. It echoed in the silence of the wide basement. They walked straight for the door at the end, behind all the office equipment and boxes.

Sara snorted. “Laurel is the one that told you how to – _allegedly_ \- go about this so that you could use lawful loopholes to get out of it. Are we talking about the same person?”

Felicity shrugged. When she put it _that_ way.

“This is _so_ freaking illegal though.” Sara said as she broke the second lock, and she actually giggled. If Felicity hadn’t known just how seriously she took this, she would have been worried.

“Twenty years minimum. Possibly in a federal facility, yeah.” Her voice shook.

“Lucky you’re as good as you are then. Come on.” She opened the second door and they both slipped inside.

Felicity went straight for the box at the end of the narrow hallway, while Sara lit the way with the flashlight. Felicity grabbed her bag, where her computer and an assortment of tiny little spying toys she would use to get into the building’s system and eventually, her mother’s therapist’s work computer.

And that was where the real fun would begin.

-

By the time they did meet again, spring was in full bloom and they hadn’t properly seen each other in four months. Under the large white tents set up in the back of the Queen Manor gardens, Oliver was going through the motions of greeting what he figured was guest number fifty-seven, when he heard her. Or rather, he heard her laughter. Unselfconscious and loud, the sound of it travelled all across the gardens, crawling up the back of his neck.

It was ironic that after so long of deliberately ignoring her, she would show up at his graduation party. Felicity wouldn’t want anything to do with him anymore - or that’s what he’d resigned himself to. So why would she come?

It could have been anyone at the bar, in that black dress that toed the line between ‘not quite indecent’ and ‘I don’t give a fuck’, talking animatedly to a bartender who seemed too young to have been chosen by his mother. But then again, Oliver didn't know anyone else who had so few fucks to give that she’d that kind of dress with those kinds of boots at a Queen’s cocktail party.

Oliver felt torn between wanting to run to her just to say hello and look at her face, and getting the hell out of her line of sight. He didn’t have the chance to do either, however, because in that exact moment she turned and immediately found him in the crowd, as if she’d known exactly where he was standing.

His heart fell all the way to his shoes and at the same time, it started beating at his fingertips.

With her hair out of the way into a bun, he could see her face clearly. For a moment her expression was blank, but then her black-rimmed eyes narrowed and she smiled.

Oliver’s palms started sweating.

She started forward and Oliver had a moment of blind panic where he just wanted to turn and run. He couldn’t though – hadn’t been able to move a single inch since she spotted him and then a moment after it was too late because she was right in front of him.

From up close, Oliver could see she’d added more than just some purple in her hair. There was a piercing running through her eyebrow and another one through her left nostril, the tiny stone on it sparkling in the sun. A thin ring looped around the right corner of her lower lip as well, looking strange against the pale pink of her lips. That one at least was familiar. She got it about a month ago. He’d seen it in the pictures on Tommy’s phone.

“Hello, graduation boy. Mazel Tov.”

Oliver cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

Felicity smiled, but there was no warmth in it. He’d missed her so much, and she was so angry.

Wasn’t this what he’d wanted, though?

_No! No it wasn’t!_

He’d wanted to not fuck things up! Not to hurt her, or worse… make her hate him, like he always did. He’d wanted -

“Surprised to see me?”

“I-”

“Not that I’d blame you if you were,” She interrupted with a careless shrug. “I mean, after all you didn’t invite me.”

Oliver wished – as he had since five seconds after he closed the door of her apartment after himself months ago - that he could take it all back. The choice he made that night and the ones he kept making. He wished he’d known another way of going about this, but he hadn’t. Still didn’t.

“I’m sorry.”

It was all he could say and at this point he was pretty sure he was apologizing for all of it.

Felicity’s eyes shone brightly, her smile so fixed it was starting to feel plastic. “What for?”

Oliver tried to reach for her, but she immediately took a step back. He pulled his hand back, disappointment making it feel heavy.

“Felicity! Hello!”

She looked away and Oliver realized he’d sort of been holding his breath.

“Mister Queen. Good morning.” Felicity offered her hand first, as confident as ever. “Mrs. Queen. Thank you for having me. It’s a lovely gathering.”

His mom embraced her lightly and kissed her cheeks. “No need to be formal, Felicity, you practically grew up in our home.”

Felicity shrugged. “It is a formal occasion.”

His father laughed and Oliver edged just a little further away from them, wanting out of this conversation. Felicity’s eyes pinned him the moment that thought flitted through his head. He wondered what the chances were that she’d chuck the closest heavy object at his head, if he dared to bail right now.

By the look on her face, he’d say they were pretty high.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” Robert said looking around with a smile. “We tried to make it a bit less stuffy by setting it up outside, but there’s just so much nature can do with so many suits around.”

“I love your shoes.” Robert continued cheerfully, quite genuine in his amusement. “They make up for at least seven boring conversations I’ve had in the last hour.”

Felicity’s smile made Oliver remember a documentary on sharks that he’d seen with Thea some time ago.

“Thank you. I like your tie.”

Robert glanced at Moira with a small smile. “My wife’s good taste.”

“I figured.”

His father laughed.

He was a charming man, his father. Oliver didn’t like to think about it, but his mom was right when she said Oliver got his charm from him. ( _His mother was unfailingly polite in society, but she didn’t really_ like _people_.) Skin-deep shit like that only made Felicity suspicious though. It was why she had always been one of the few people Oliver knew that never tried to get his father’s attention, nor did she revel in it. He used to resent her for that freedom, years ago, and he still envied her for it.

And it also made him miss her with an ache so sudden it felt like a kick to the ribs.

“I’m glad you could make it, Felicity.” his mother said. “We weren’t sure you would be able to. Malcolm mentioned that you had taken on some extra courses and that you intend to take another major.”

A small crinkle appeared between Felicity’s eyebrows.

“Yeah Malcolm likes to mention things. I’ve been busy, but I really wouldn’t miss this for the world.” she turned to look at Oliver, her stare pounding him in the face like a fist. “Do you know what you’re going to do after? Tommy mentioned something about an internship at Queen Consolidated. Or is that old news too?”

Oliver cleared his throat. “No. I- I’m going to try and see how it goes.”

His mother smiled. “Yes. We are all very proud.”

“Right. I mean, you have to start somewhere.” She sounded so perfectly understanding, but Oliver could almost hear the hiss of her sharp mind turning. “Didn’t your also start your career in business by working for your father, Mr. Queen?”

His father nodded, surprised and pleased. “Yes, I did. Far too many years ago. Did you hear that from Malcolm?”

Felicity tilted her head. “After a fashion.”

“Like father, like son.” His mother said proudly and it was all Oliver could do not to wince.

Felicity’s raised one eyebrow at him. He didn’t know how it was possible that she could look both amused and derisive, but she made it work.

“True.” Felicity said with a small nod. “I see the resemblance more and more every day.”

Oliver suppressed a groan. His parents wouldn’t get it, but he knew her too well not to know one of her insults when she hurled it at him. 

“Excuse me; I have to speak to my mother.” With a smile at both his parents and without looking at him once, she retreated.

He was walking after her before he’d made a conscious decision to do so.

“Can we talk?”

She stopped walking and turned to him. Her wide, babe-in-the-woods eyes as she looked up at him fool exactly no one.

“I thought’ I had just fulfilled my quota of small talk before I could excuse myself politely. Do you wanna expand on the weather?

“Can we please talk in private, Felicity?” Oliver ground out.

“No, I don’t think so. You have guests, it would be rude.”

Oliver gritted his teeth. “I don’t care-”

Her lips thinned, her eyes narrowed at him. There it was, the real.

“Yeah, I’m aware of how much you don’t care.” She clarified slowly. Her anger, open now, was as sharp as the crack of a whip and it froze him on the spot.

She turned her back to him without another word and left.

Oliver felt his father coming up to his side and laying a hand on his shoulder. “She is… _astoundingly_ angry at you.”

Oliver blinked. His face felt a little numb. “What?”

“She _did_ just compare you to me. The situation is dire, son.”

Oliver shifted on his feet. “Excuse me.”

“Go on.”

“Robert, really-” His mother began but Oliver didn’t hear how it ended. His feet took him right to her, just as she carelessly threw her purse on the table and sat on one of the chairs heavily. She was on the phone.

“I’ll send you the data the second I get it. No, listen. You don’t have to come with me, I’ll be fine.”

He pulled out a chair. Its lets scraped on the wooden platform and she flinched, turning to him wide-eyed.

Oliver sat down slowly.

She didn’t even blink.

“Iris, I have someone sitting abnormally close to me right now, so I’m gonna have to call you back.” She flipped her phone closed and then tilted her head. “Are you lost?”

“No."

“Tommy’s not here. As you can see.”

He could. Her table was almost empty. Everyone else was mingling, but Felicity didn’t do the schmoozing thing and had the nasty habit of picking up and leaving if anyone ignored her ‘no’. Donna and Malcolm had learned that early on.

Suddenly Oliver was reminded of her at thirteen, wearing black to her mother’s wedding, sitting alone in a corner at the reception looking as angry as a small storm. Just like she did now.

He’d found it so funny then. 

“I wasn’t looking for Tommy.” In fact, Oliver was actually glad Tommy wasn’t there. He doubted his best friend’s presence would have made this easier.

“Anything I can help you with, then?”

How did she manage to make everything sound like an insult when she was being perfectly polite?

“I just wanted to talk.”

“You wanted to talk? Right… _What_ do you wanna talk about? Business? Politics? People who have committed murders in public and gotten away with it?”

He couldn’t help a small smile. God, he’d missed the way she talked. “You keep a list?”

Her eyes narrowed at him; she crossed her hands over her chest. “I needed some heroes.”

_Right…_

“I’m sorry for avoiding you. For not calling. Or writing.” He winced, shame rolling up his neck like a heat wave in the middle of august. “And missing your birthday.”

“That’s a lot of sorry-s.”

Oliver shifted on his seat. “I’m pretty I could add more if you gave me a moment.”

She scoffed, rolled her eyes at him and then looked away to her phone. As clear a dismissal as he could get.

“You’re forgiven.”

Oliver blinked, completely taken aback. “I… What?”

“You heard me.”

Oliver took a moment. And considered it, before dismissing it. She wasn’t even looking at him.

“It’s not _fine_. I- I never meant… I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but I know I did. And I can’t explain why right now,” he couldn’t explain, period. How would he even _begin_ to, in a way that made sense? He could feel himself start to sweat just thinking about it. “But-”

“You’re sorry.” She nodded, impatient. “I got it the first time.”

Oliver felt his hands fall uselessly to his sides. Talking to her when she was like this was like trying to push headfirst through a brick wall.

He wondered though, if this was the kind of helplessness Felicity had felt and if she was being like this because she wanted him to have a taste of it. It wasn’t that far from her style, to give people a taste of heir own medicine. Felicity was many things and vindictive was among them. She’d never been ashamed of it.

He didn’t blame her, anyway. He welcomed it, even. Oliver had pussyfooted with the reality of his actions for a while, avoiding even thinking about it. But now, in a direct confrontation with the consequences, it was becoming impossible to deny that he’d gone with the stupidest option on the table.

 _Can’t ruin a friendship and be a creep you have no friendship. Real smart thinking there, Queen_.

_Jesus Christ…_

“Felicity-”

She huffed. “I know I’m a fan of reruns, but even I draw a line at the four worded ones. And stop flattering yourself; you didn’t ‘hurt my feelings’, I’m not twelve.” Her voice was steady and her eyes too, when she said that. “And I’m not irrational either.”

He had no idea what she was talking about: she was plenty irrational and loved it.

“We all have lives to deal with and priorities, Oliver.” She went on to explain. “And that’s fine. Relax.”

_We all have priorities…_

He leaned back in his chair, sighed deeply. “Just tell me what to do to make it up to you.”

“Oh my god, aren’t you listening?” But she wasn’t looking at him again. Oliver followed her eyes and saw that Donna and Malcolm were headed towards them.

He didn’t budge.

“Yeah, I heard you. I say you’ve forgiven me but you haven’t and you don’t plan to. I’m still gonna give it my best shot, though. I’m gonna buy a coffee stand and endless supplies of ice-cream. Those sweets at Buzz you like. That new OS Wayne Enterprises is developing. I’m going all out. Groveling will be revisited often.”

“That’s cute.” She deadpanned. By the look on her face, she wasn’t in the mood for cute. She looked at him without blinking and Oliver tried very hard to stare back.

“You’re wasting your own party, Oliver. Go annoy someone else.”

“No.”

She turned to him slowly. She’d hadn’t been moving before but there was something more to her stillness now. If looks could kill, he’d be dead.

“No?” she asked softly.

Oliver gulped. Yeah, cute wouldn’t do it, he should have known.

“You ignore me for months, as if I never existed or _mattered_ , never deign to even explain why, make me feel like an _idiot-_ ”

“I didn’t mean-”

“And now, after _explicitly_ telling you to remove yourself, you want to _force_ your presence on me? Because you _feel like it_? Do I owe you a kidney or something?”

“That’s _not_ what I meant!” Oliver said, more forcefully now.

“ _I don’t give a fuck what you meant!_ You don’t get to sit here being all surprised your actions suddenly have consequences _._ ”

If it hadn’t been for the way her lips had thinned the way they did when she was angry, he would have thought her completely calm. It freaked him out.

Felicity shook her head, scoffing gently. “You are so full of shit, but _I see you_ , Oliver. You play with people like they’re toys. Keep this up and one day there’ll be no one left to play with.”

Oliver recoiled. If she’d slapped him hard enough to skin him, it would have probably hurt less.

“Oliver, honey, happy graduation!” Oliver barely heard Donna, his head was buzzing, but then she was there hugging him and it was difficult to ignore her. Or the weary look she gave her daughter.  

Malcolm shook his hand too and they both tried to trap him with some small-talk. Felicity stayed in her chair, engrossed in her phone, ignoring them all.

“Sit, sit! We haven’t seen you in so long.” Donna reached over and patted his hand again, the warmth in her smile making up for how tightly her skin stretched along her cheekbones.

“You seemed to be having quite the discussion.” Malcolm noted with a crooked smile. “Did we interrupt one of Felicity’s usual debates?”

“Malcolm, really.” Donna chided.

“Oh, I’m I personally find her mental acrobatics amusing. She has a myriad of topics she loves confusing people with.” Malcolm explained to Oliver as he reached for his glass of water.. “What was it this time?”

“Entitlement.” Felicity answered flatly.

“That’s bound to find rich grounds on this table.” Tommy said cheerfully as he sat by Felicity’s other side. “Hey buddy.”

“Hey.”

Tommy frowned. “You’re looking kind of pale there buddy? You okay?”

“Just great.”

Tommy’s eyebrows rose but when one questioning look at Felicity wielded no results, he shrugged and let it go.

Malcolm asked about what he intended to do now that he had graduated and Oliver tried to keep up the conversation but he could barely even concentrate his answers.

“Felicity here is taking on a double major.” Malcolm said after Oliver made it known he had no intention of furthering his education.

“Right, she is. Do you ever sleep, you bitter fruit[1]?” Tommy asked her bumping his shoulder to hers affectionately. She shoved him lightly.

“I periodically make a whirling noise and then just shut down.”

“By the time she graduates there won’t be a company in the country that won’t fall over themselves to snag her right off the plate.” Malcolm continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted.

“Love being stuffed in weird food metaphors.” Felicity murmured.

“One would think that would serve as an example-” Mr. Merlyn gave Tommy a look who rolled his eyes but before he could say anything, Felicity barreled in.

“You know what I just realized? ‘Oy’ is the funniest word in the whole world.”

Tommy bit his lip to contain his smile. “Is it?”

“Yup. I mean think about it, you never hear the word ‘oy’ and not smile. Impossible. Funny, funny word.”

Donna sighed, but considering the smile on her face she didn’t look like she minded much.

"’Poodle’ is another funny word.”

“Please finish your meal, Felicity.” Malcolm said flatly.

Oliver for his part was slowly starting to realize what Felicity’s ‘debates’ Malcolm had mentioned looked like.

“In fact, if you put ‘oy’ and ‘poodle’ together, in the same sentence, you'd have a great new catchphrase, you know? Like, ‘ _Oy with the poodles already_.’”

Tommy snorted trying to keep his laughter dignified.

“So from now on, when the perfect circumstances arise, we will use our favorite new catchphrase.” She declared.

“Oy with the poodles already![2]” Tommy supplied.

“Excellent.”

“You are both ridiculous.” Donna said, but she was smiling at them both, affection warm in her eyes. Oliver had never felt more out of place sitting with the Merlyns than right in that moment.

Throughout the whole time, Felicity hadn’t looked at him once.

-

When she got up to get herself some cake, Oliver followed, because no matter how harshly she’d thrown his own idiotic persistence in the face, the longer he was around her now the more he understood how callous he’d been to cut off all contact the way he had. He was frantic with need to do something about it. _Anything_!

When she noticed him following her, Felicity groaned. “Don’t think for one second your relentlessness is anything but annoying at best and creepy at worst.”

Oliver flinched, lost his footing.

“I can explain if you- if you just give me a second to get one word in edgewise!”

She stopped and turned around.

“Right. You were always so good at the whole guilt thing.” She stepped towards him and for a moment Oliver thought she’d push him. “Let’s fucking go, Queen. Come on! Let it all out! Because the actual thing happening obviously wasn’t hurtful enough; I need an _essay_ on it.”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do! I want to make it up to you and explain why-”

“Yes, explaining to me _why_ someone I trusted and thought that I knew, suddenly decided I was no longer an important part of their life. Or _any_ part really. No explanation, no reason. You just got _bored_ so obviously I wasn’t worth the consideration-”

“ _Hey_!”

She flinched at his raised voice but her glare kept going strong. “What, did I hurt your feelings?”

He hesitated, then decided to be honest. “Yeah.”

The crossed her arms over her chest. “Oops.”

Oliver let out a long breath and passed a hand down his face.

Right. _Oops_.

“I made a mistake, okay.” He finally said, his voice breaking. “I made a really stupid mistake, and I’m sorry. But I still- you’re still my friend, and I _never_ meant to hurt you. I just got too wrapped up in myself and didn’t _think_.”

Her arms were crossed so tightly over her stomach that he didn’t think they would ever unwind again.

“Your mistake lasted months, Oliver.”

He looked down, shuffled his feet. He hadn’t known how he would have been able to look at her in the eye until he did, so he made himself look up again.

“I know. I’m not trying to excuse what I did. I’m apologizing for it.”

Felicity sighed. Sounded exhausted. She was just about to say something when her phone chirped loudly. It visibly startled her, but she didn’t hesitate to see what it was.

Her hands shook a little.

“Is everything okay?”

“You don’t get to do that.” She snapped. “That’s none of your business.”

When Oliver didn’t say anything, Felicity sighed, her shoulders sagging just a fraction.

“What do you want from me, Oliver? Do you want me to pretend that nothing happened? ‘Cause I don’t do that.”

“No! I just-” his heart was beating so fast he was sure she would take another look in his eyes and just _know_. “A second chance to be your friend would be nice.”

“I’m not in the habit of giving second chances.” Her eyes were shuttered, impossible to read. “They’re a waste of time, people don’t change.”

Oliver could have groaned or fallen to his knees. Either was possible, both just as likely.

“So make an exception. One time. _This_ one time.”

Her eyebrows rose up, disbelieving. “For you?”

“Yeah.”                          

“You’re so conceited.” She sounded both surprised and repelled by it.

“It’s part of my charm.” He dared.

Her eye-roll was worth it. “No. It’s part of you being an-.”

“And entitled asshole, I know.”

Her phone chirped again. “Look I have to go.”

“Now?”

“Yeah, Queen. Now.” She bit back, annoyed. “Life goes on, you know, independently of where you fuck off to. I’ve got shit to do.”

She turned her back on him and kept walking.

“So was that a ‘yes’ on the exception?”

“ _No_!”

“Was it a ‘no’?”

“I don’t know! and if you wanna fight you you’ll shut it.”

-

In her car, she dove into the backseat and opened her computer to verify the data. All the drives had been copied to her cloud. William Gretchen-Drake Ph.D., was now basically all in there for her to read about. His work computer, his personal pc, his phone, tablet – all of it at her fingertips. Drake was really an idiot for not using a better security network, but especially for dealing with his lawyer and banker on the phone and via mail. The encryption he used was a joke.

Once she got home, Felicity used that trail to access his bank accounts in the old fashioned hacking way, and there she found some interesting numbers. Malcolm hadn’t threatened him. He’d paid him. He’d paid her mother’s therapist to lie and manipulate her. As Malcolm had been lying and manipulating her for years.

And in the mean time Felicity had been trying to prove her superiority to him, fucking around with MIT and boys and Oliver Queen’s drama, while her mother was gaslit and emotionally abused, with nobody to help her, because not even her daughter had listened!

Years of this shit…

Felicity felt her eyes sting but gritted her teeth against it. Tears were a waste of time. She called Iris instead.

“Iris West speaking, who is this?”

“I got it.”

“Geez Felicity, do you change numbers every five minutes?”

“It’s an app I wrote. I got the documents. You’ll be able to prove everything. I’ll wrap it into a zip file, bounce it around some so that its intractable. It’ll be on your emails by tomorrow.”

“Got it. I’ll have the article ready by the end of the week. I will send you a message on our secure line before I call Drake for a statement.”

“He won’t tell you anything.” Felicity didn’t have a single doubt on that.

He would call Malcolm though. She was counting on that.

Iris scoffed. “Yeah. Men like that don’t like being shoved into tight corners by little girls.”

Little girls didn’t like being shoved into corners by big men either, and yet, that never seemed to stop them.

Fuck them. Fuck Drake and Malcolm. She wouldn’t piss on either if they were on fire and soon enough she would set a torch on them both.

“I’ll talk to you later Iris.”

“Take care Felicity.” Iris said softly.

“Yeah, I will.”

That was a lie though. She’d been so consumed by all this for months now and it had been a little longer still since she’d actually stopped to take care of herself. Tommy knew something was up and didn’t push as long as she let him in a little bit, but she’d lost contact with everyone else in her life around the time she let herself have one good cry about Oliver, and told herself there was a statute of delimitation on pain and she had just reached it.

She’d written new program that would get her the access she’d needed to get the proof she needed against Malcolm and Drake, and it was the kind of monster program that Felicity hadn’t even begun to contemplate beyond ‘it’s dangerous’. But she hadn’t thought about that either.

She was ready to burst with rage that had kept accumulating for months, so she stood and paced for maybe 20 minutes, trying to get her shit together enough so that she could work. She kicked her pants off and sat down at her station again. Her room had begun to look like someone with a Matrix aesthetic had regurgitated in there but she didn’t really care anymore.

She was at it for sixteen hours straight and then passed out on the bed on top of the covers.

Her beeping phone woke her around 1 p.m. of the next day. She blinked awake disoriented and with a twinge of guilt, before she remembered that it was Sunday and there were no classes. That she wasn’t even in Boston.

She’d been neglecting uni, but even though Felicity knew she should care, she didn’t, not really. Or rather… well, it was complicated. She _did_ care, very much – but she felt she shouldn’t, because her mother came first. And she was so tired. Some nights she stayed up so late coding that she slept until midday and missed all her morning classes. That too, as well as the extra work, was a reason why she would take summer courses this year. But she hadn’t told anyone that.

Felicity groaned and turned her phone up to see who had messaged her. When she saw Oliver’s face smirking on her screen, the only thing she had the energy to feel was irritation – at him for his presumptuousness, and everything else. At herself for not having deleted his number. Then another text came: ‘ _I know you’re reading this through one bleary eye_.’

Felicity groaned and shoved the phone off the bed. She hid her head under the pillow for another hour before she finally gave into her insatiable need to have the last word and sent him a cactus emoji.

No amount of pillows or blankets could shake the feeling that she could actually hear him snickering on the other all the way from the other side of Starling.

 _Asshole_.

But there was no heat behind it. And that made her angry too.

* * *

[1] Anna, Bev, I’m winking at you both

[2] Directly from gilmore girls, because im very, painfully not funny.


	6. - vi -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOD I FORGOT TO WARN FOR THE PHYSICAL ABUSE AT THE END OF THIS SCAPTER IM SO SORRY. truly i am. Im so so sorry.  
> I feel like the warning is needed even though the violence is in no way exesive by arrow standarts or descriptive, because its used as a scare tactic and its sth a lot of kids who were physically abused are very familiar with. So warning for that. (I will say exactly what happens in the end note - so spoilers there - for those who need a more detailed description)

It was lunchtime when Felicity finally crawled out of her room. She’d been laying in bed thinking about getting up and unable to muster the will to actually _do_ it, for at least 2 hours. If it hadn’t been for her need for coffee she might not have bothered. As it was, she dragged her feet through the kitchen yawning, in her MIT T-shirt a pair of sweatpants she’d filched from Tommy’s closet.

“Good morning, Felicity.”

Felicity flinched and almost dropped the coffee pot. “Oh my _god_ , you’re like a popup book from hell[1].”

“Though, of course, it’s afternoon, but let’s pretend for politeness sake.” Malcolm continued.

She took a deep breath and finished filling the coffeepot. “Should have known you were in here.” She grumbled without turning. “The whole room smells of sulfur[2] and Old Spice.”

He chuckled.

“I was never a fan of sarcasm, but even I cannot deny you’re a funny girl. You have your father’s wit.”

Felicity scoffed. “Sometimes I wish he’d take it back[3].”

He came in; reached for the coffeepot she’d just left it on the counter and poured himself a cup.  “I met him once at one of his company’s official functions. Brilliant man.”

“Shame you two never hit it off.” Felicity turned to look to face him, leaning against the kitchen isle, cup of coffee in her hand. “Match made on Dante’s fourth circle[4].”

She grinned and then let the expression immediately slip of her face. Malcolm just keep smiling at her in his immaculate three peace suit. She hated when he did that, look at her in that creepy way of his, without blinking once. Tommy always said that Malcolm could read people like they were his morning paper. In Felicity’s opinion, Tommy exaggerated - when he got scared even Felicity could read him like a book. But there was a measure of truth to his words. Malcolm _was_ perceptive – and though Felicity had made it no secret she wasn’t his biggest fan, the things she knew about him now had so much potential damage, that she couldn’t afford for him to glimpse so much as a hint of them on her face.

“He is very acute with technology, your father. It’s a shame he doesn’t leave the west coast more often.” Malcolm continued as he straightened his watch.

“Like most predators he’s uncomfortable leaving his turf.”

“The annual contest he started a few years ago is still being held. Half a million dollars to whoever bypasses his Felix[5] system. As far as I know, nobody has collected yet[6].”

As if it was about collecting the money. “I’ll add it to the list of his accomplishments I don’t keep by the bed.”

“You should. His reputation is part of the reason why Merlyn Global employs his security protocols for our serves.”

Felicity sighed. “This is easily turning into one of the most useless conversations I’ve ever taken part in.”                                      

“I suppose it’s ironic how his talent is building cyber security systems and yours is hacking them.”

Felicity stopped moving so fast she almost tripped on her feet.

Rationally told her that the best thing to do was just to keep breathing and exit the kitchen calmly. Malcolm was just playing his bullshit mind games on her. She should just ignore him the way she always did. Nothing to it. She’d been guilty as charged before and nothing had stopped her from bluffing her way through. But…

_Hacking…_

Of all the words to use, he _had_ to pick that one!

It couldn’t be a coincidence. This shit was too dangerous for Felicity to let herself believe in things like that. Especially not with the way he was looking at her.

Like he knew everything and he was so satisfied with it all.

“Nothing witty to say? That’s rare. And knowing you, telling.”

Felicity took a deep breath and turned. “I was just wondering what my professors would think to see all their hard work being credited to some chick called Irony, but you do you.”

Her voice was steady, she could almost pass for carefree, which she was grateful, for because despite her best efforts, Felicity couldn’t keep from going over every step of the hack in her head. She’d left no mark, no signature, _nothing_ that could lead back to her. Her virus was undetectable and she knew _that_ because she’d built it especially to crack a system she was as familiar with as the back of her hand. Together with Cooper they’d run _three_ separate tests drives, and _nobody_ had any idea she had ever hacked anything! She _knew_ all of this…

But she was guilty as shit and her heart was beating hard against her ribs, and all she could think of was that Malcolm knew everything, she was fucked and so was her mom.

 _Why_ was he _smiling_?

“Your professors?”

“Yeah… the ones at MIT. You know, big building, lots of smart people in it?”

“Yes, quite right. I have been told that you keep missing classes and your performance has been below the bar this past few months though.”

Felicity made a face. “You’ve been _told_? What you have my tutors in your pocket now?”

“I keep tabs on your academic progress. Any particular reason why?”

Felicity turned his back on him again and got out of the kitchen. “Have a _stunning_ day, Malcolm.”

Because ‘ _I hope you trip and fall down a flight of stairs’_ might have been a bit too telling. Maybe.

“Perhaps you were distracted by your… dispute with Oliver? Or perhaps something else. I’m not quite sure. Teenagers minds have always eluded me.”

“I suppose you don’t think we’re people.” She said taking a sip of her coffee.

_And being a sociopath hinders your understanding of the impact of human emotion._

The corner of his mouth crooked upwards. “Your hand is shaking, Felicity.”

“That tends to happen when you’re coming down from a high, Malcolm.” Felicity said nonchalantly as she stopped in front of him. He was standing right in the middle of the doorway and dint move to let her by. He just kept staring and smiling so she grinned, big and fake, and looked him straight in the eye. “Now, an ethical question: do I give you the breasts or the ass?[7]”

He smiled sharply and moved to let her through. “My apologies.”

“Whatever.”

“Your pupil dilatation seems perfectly normal.”

“Why thank you Malcolm. I don’t believe anyone’s every complimented my pupils before.”

She could hear his steps following her into the living room.

“Playing the fool fits you ill, Felicity.”

“So do all my favorite T-shirts.”

She walked through the living room and the entrance, hating the fact that she had to cross what felt like a small football field to get to the stairs. She was trying hard to keep her pace steady, so that she didn’t seem like she was running, but Malcolm was making it harder by the minute. Felicity couldn’t stand being close to him. The dislike that had always been there, white noise in the background, had turned into a hot, pulsing hatred she didn’t know what to do with.

Imagining him dying slowly just wasn’t _cutting_ it.

“Deception is a subtle art, Felicity; something you were always too confrontational for. And a badly told lie is like a shout.”

“Poetic. You should retread into the woods, grow a beard and write America’s next great novel.”

“My personal server was hacked this weekend.” Malcolm said, brushing her words aside as easily as if she hadn’t said anything at all.

“Condolences.”

“My IT department proved stunningly incompetent in front of it. They didn’t even register the breach, cannot tell me what was taken and keep insisting my information is wrong. After all, the Felix System has an impeccable record.”

“And yet here you are, wasting your time with me.”

“Oh I believe I’m exactly where I should be.”

Felicity’s face fell. The words ‘ _He knows, he knows’_ kept spinning around in her head like a broken carousel, but she couldn’t tell if that was her intuition or her fear talking.

…Oliver always said that intuition and fear were the same thing. Maybe she should listen.

“You seem cool as a cucumber about a possible cyber attack on your company’s data.” She dared.

“can appreciate a momentary setback as an opportunity to root out weakness.” Malcolm said, smile never faltering.

Felicity’s lip curled back as she made the connection. She didn’t need to struggle long: she just imagined the worst possible thing someone could do in a situation, and go with that.

“You’re firing your whole department, aren’t you? You don’t even know if there was a breach.”

“But I do know.” He deadpanned.

A chill ran up Felicity’s smile and she was suddenly very away that they were alone in the house. She hadn’t even seen the kitchen staff that Malcolm insisted on changing every two months.

“And ineptitude has consequences. Now, _I_ have a meeting with my lawyer in,” he glanced at his watch and straightened his tie. “Thirty minutes. We will be going over how to best proceed with the lawsuit against your fathers company, among other things.”

“Good luck with that.”

He raised his eyebrows ever so slightly. “What, no concern for your absent parent?”

Felicity snorted. “You seriously overestimate my daddy issues, Malcolm.”

His eyes narrowed down on her. He smiled. “I see I haven’t underestimated your vengeful streak, however.”

“I’m smart, rich and bored, man: my empathy is minimal and I live to be petty.”

He chuckled, as if honestly amused. “Oh, Felicity. If I hadn’t known you since you were a child, perhaps that might work.”

Felicity’s fingers twitched around her cup. Superhuman-focus fucker. Nothing she said could manage to divert his attention. Talking to him when he was like this was like slamming into a wall repeatedly.

She started to climb the stairs. “Dude, there’s not enough alcohol in the world for this conversation.”

“I know you hate me Felicity.”

She stopped in her tracks, and then kept climbing. “And here I thought I was being subtle about that.”

“That’s okay. I prefer honesty.”

She snorted. “You don’t give a shit about honesty. You prefer obedience.”

Malcolm laughed, amused for the first time. “Well that’s true. But then again so do you.”

“Wow, your insight into my character astounds me,” She deadpanned.

“I met a man some years ago, who taught me to respect the value of hatred. It is a great source of sustenance and incentive. You use it well enough, you can almost live off it."

She hadn’t stopped climbing up. He’d followed her.

"Sounds like your kind of person."

"We had our differences of thought but on this we agreed. Was it not your hatred of me that drove you to such extreme lengths?"

Felicity gritted her teeth and said nothing. _'Let him think whatever he wants._ Do not _let him inside your head_.'

“I know you hacked into Doctor Drakes… well, everything really.” He was standing right in front of her, on the same step, looking down at her. Felicity resisted the impulse to take a step backwards. “He was careless with his secondary account, so it was easy to link him to it, but _I_ am not careless. You couldn’t find the account _I_ send the money from, so you to took a risk and hacked into my personal computer to compare the banking transactions to the data you found. It was, if I may say so, impressive work. Especially since you managed to get through Merlyn Global’s defenses undetected.”

Felicity felt the color leave her face even as his smile got wider and he got closer.

“Had I not taken the precaution of having you followed nine months ago, I would have been none the wiser.”

Laurel kept running through her head. ‘ _Say nothing to no one. Admit nothing, not ever. Always ask for a lawyer. Say_ nothing _! Repeat it._ Repeat _it._ ’

“You seem to know a lot for someone who knows nothing at all.”

“It’s my job. I’m good at it.”

Felicity shifted on her feet, mind working furiously. “Right. Right, because apparently you had me followed. Which is, you know, delightful, very _you_ by the way. And also very illegal and about ten different times of creepy. Never mind that something you can’t exactly use in a court of law to prove an alleged hack that, according to everyone who knows their shit, didn’t even happen.”

“You’re sweating, Felicity.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “The heat the flames of hell you keep emanating is getting to me.”

“You should not worry: I have no intention of sending you to jail, my dear!” he continued, laughing a little, as if he was surprised by the idea. But the expression on his face was a contrast to the ice cold interest in his eyes. It made the whole thing look fake. “If I could, I would get you to work for me, but I’m a realist. No, what I want is the ‘ _how’_.”

“What?”

“That too. See, your father insists that only a very sophisticated virus could have slipped by his firewalls and that if it can do that, then it can slip past anything. He claims such a program doesn’t exists, but that if it _did_ , his first bet on who built it would be you.”

“I’m flattered. _You_ on the other hand, are delusional.”

She turning her back to him and keep climbing the stairs.

“It’s an exercise in futility to deny it, Felicity.”

“About the only exercise I get these days.”

“I’m not asking for something, for nothing.”

Felicity scoffed. “I’m not surprised you think everyone has a price.”

“Everyone does have a price. The mistake of the small-minded is to think the currency is always money. What I am offering you is something you’re quite desperate for.”

“You just love hearing your own voice, don-.”

“Your mother’s freedom.”

Felicity stopped short. Turned. She looked into his eyes and he smiled, and when for the space of the small moment during which Felicity caught herself considering his offer, she realized that it was true. He did have a reason to be happy. He had led her to this moment the whole time and he now he had her right where he wanted her.

Suddenly there was not enough room to breathe. She felt trapped. She was standing in this huge house but the walls seemed to have been closing in the whole time, she just hadn’t noticed, and now it was too late.

“You have been trying to steer her into a separation for a while now. You want me out of her life.”

 _How dare he!_ How dare he talk about her mother in her face like that, like what he’d been doing was nothing. Meant nothing.

“What I _want_ is for you to drop dead.” She hissed fiercely, angrier than she’d ever allowed herself to be in front of him. “But we don’t always get what we want, do we?”

“True, but we _can_ occasionally get what we need.” He said, arms open, showing her his palms like that would have made her trust him. “I am offering you what you need, in exchange for what I want.”

She caught on fast, her mind spinning so fast that her skull was hurting. Her hands were so sweaty the cup was almost slipping from her numb fingers.

That was how he did business, wasn’t it. He cornered people into needing shit from him. Shit he could give… for a price. One that was always too steep to pay but there were no alternatives.

“After you show your collection of facts to your mother and break her heart, you’re going to ask her to file for divorce. She will. And I fight her every step of the way. It will be a loud, ugly, messy affair. Her business will suffer, and I’m afraid with her gender in play many things might be said that might isolate her from the business world completely.” He looked at her with such sympathy. She wanted to claw his eyes out. “To be honest, I’m not quite sure your mother will be able to cope with the strain of it.”

He paused, to let his words sink in. And they did. Felicity felt them like shards of glass digging under her nails all the way through to the bone. She’d thought she couldn’t hate him more but she was wrong. It had a taste now, a smell. She could feel it filling her lungs like air.

“But if you give me the program - I sign the divorce papers _today_. Right now, if you like. My lawyer has them drafted.”

“How farsighted of you.” Felicity murmured numbly.

“I’m a businessman my dear. I work in contingencies.”

Oh course. Of course he was.

“You know what I learned living with you, Malcolm?” she asked softly.

“How to know a good deal when you see it, I hope.”

“I did. Also that you are a backstabbing piece of shit with no feelings. And you don’t _make_ exchanges: it means you have to give up something that you think belongs to you… doesn’t it? Your philosophy is more alone the line of ‘ _if I can’t have it, then I will destroy it’_.”

His smile fell and for the first time, Felicity was sure she was seeing what he really looked like. Beneath the charm, the politeness, and the wit - he was someone who looked at her like he wanted to hurt her.

She turned to leave, knowing she had to get out and this time not caring whether he say her run or not. But she didn’t expect any of what happened next.

He grabbed her arm so hard she thought her bone would snap, and pulled her around to face him. She yelped, tripped down the two steps she’d climbed. Her coffee cup slipped from her hands, but before it hit the ground, he caught it and smashed it against the wall. Felicity flinched at the sound tucking her shoulders in.

“Stay calm, Felicity. Now is not the time for fear. That comes later.”

She tried to get free of him but his had felt like iron.

“Let me go!” She hissed.

“I am surprised at how little sense of self preservation you show.  You are quite right in your assessment, of course, which makes me wonder why you think it’s a good idea to reject me, when you seem to know so well what would happen.”

“Go jump off a cliff, Malcolm.”

He slapped her, hard, with the back of his hand. She barely saw the movement, only felt the hit. Her head snapped back so hard her neck hurt. Her glasses fell of her face. She would have fallen down if he hadn’t been gripping her arm. The pain was like an explosion behind her eye. For a moment she couldn’t see at all, and by the time she blinked herself aware again, her cheek and ear didn’t sting anymore. The whole felt side of her face felt numb. She was shaking and there was a bitter taste in her mouth that had nothing to do with the coffee.

“Now, I’m going to repeat myself, however much I loathe doing so. You will give me the program you designed, and I will give your mother the divorce papers. You refuse, I file all of the evidence I have on the extracurricular activities of you and your friend, mister Seldon, and you both see how you like the inside of a federal prison, while your mother and I continue our blissful union. What do you think, Felicity?”

“I think you should take a sugar-frosted _fuck_ at the end of my dick.”

For a moment, his mouth tightened and she thought he would hit her again. Then he smiled.

He brought a finger gently under her chin to lift it, the touch so different from the bruising grip he had on her arm that it made her skin crawl. He lowered his voice to a whisper, the look on his face so pleasant he might have been talking about the weather.

The slap had caught her by surprise but this… this was what made her afraid.

“I notice things too, Felicity, just as you do. For instance, I noticed a habit you’ve developed as of late. You call out Dona’s name before walking into her room. You wait for her to answer and if she does not and its really quiet… you’re afraid to go in. Oh yes, I’ve noticed.”

Her blood ran cold. She tried to get away from him again but it was just token resistance at this point, too taken in by the poison of his words to really fight.

“It _will_ happen eventually, Felicity. Though not in the way you were so afraid of. You won’t get to walk in on her after, but I promise to come visit to personally deliver the news when it does.”

The image came to her fully formed, as if it had always been there in a sick corner of her mind, lurking, and she’d been too afraid to face it. The sight of her mother still, unmoving, burned at the back of her skull. A burning that spread like fire through her veins until Felicity  pulled her lips back in a snarl and hurled herself at him.

She scratched down his face and tried to bite, kick, tear into him any way she could. Malcolm grunted, then grabbed her wrist, twisted it. She screamed again; bit his arm, trying to tear through the cloth like an animal, kicking out with her elbows, her feet.

She barely felt being lifted bodily, but she did feel it when he slammed her against the wall. Her breath left her lungs all at once and didn’t didn’t seem to return.

“I think you need some time to think this through, Felicity.”

He half dragged her to one of the bare guest rooms, arm twisted behind her back, moving as easily as if this was nothing. He pushed her in. Felicity stumbled and fell to her hands and knees.

“Why don’t you take this time to find some rationality through your emotion?”

He closed the door behind him with a dry snap and in the silence broken by only her harsh breathing, she heard the lock turn.

Felicity pressed her cheek against the cool wood of the floor and tried very hard not to cry. Her face was pulsing as if it had its own heartbeat and there was a ringing in her ears. She had no phone and her computer was in her room, he’d slapped her, and slammed her against a wall…

He…

_Oh my god._

She got up, managed to sit and it was a moment before she could manage to stand. She was still shaking, so her hands slipped against the doorknob when she grabbed and twisted it. She looked down, shocked, angry, and unable to form full thoughts in her head aside from the fact that she wanted _out_. Out of this room and this house and this life!

She balled her hands into fists tried to think.

_Think. What would Laurel do? What would Sara do?_

She turned her room upside down looking for something to pick the lock with. Twenty minutes after she started, she realized that that wasn’t going to work. She threw the nail filer and the hairclip away and just tore the room apart to watch shit break. The lamp, the vase, vanity stool against the mirror.

She was _not_ going to cry, she was going to _get out_. She as not going to sit anywhere either!

Really, it was probably desperation that drove her to the window. She opened it and looked down at the thick bushes below. The second story wasn’t so high, right? She could find a toehold in the decorative ledges that ran across the wall and crawl along to the next window,. It could be unlatched, or she could just break it. She could do that.

She _could!_ And would.

She wasn’t staying that this room where he put her, shoved her! She was getting out, getting her mother and getting the fuck away from that sick, violent shitstain.

Felicity got on the ledge, and then carefully got one foot out into the four inch protruding border running along the wall. She reached up to take hold of the border over her head.

Breathing shallowly through her nose, she started crawling, not looking down. Her fingers hurt and her nails cracked with how hard she was holding on but she kept looking straight ahead, moving at a nails pace. One small inch, then another.

_Come on, come on…_

She couldn’t think beyond the next inch of space separating her from that window. Couldn’t let herself think of anything else, not the stupidity of what she was doing or its recklessness or what she’d gotten herself into.

One inch at a time.

It didn’t take much. Her arms burned already, so when she lost her grip for a moment, she couldn’t get it back.

Her stomach rolled and came up to her throat as her body felt the drop coming. She sucked in a sharp breath, afraid, knowing what was happening and yet unable to do anything to stop it. And then there was nothing but the fall.

She didn’t even have time to scream.

* * *

[1] Gilmore girls ref.

[2] I read somewhere that that’s what rooms smell like when demons escape hell, and land somewhere on earth.

[3] Gilmore girls reference.

[4] The fourth circle of hell in Dante was reserved for those being punished  for greed.

[5] Yes, the system is named after felicity. Or felicity after the system, im not sure and neither Is felicity and she hates it.

[6] Fom ‘italian jobì

[7] Fight club, the movie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Malcolm, noticing she is not afraid and wanting to make her afraid by introducing the threat of pgysical violence to his already compounded threats, slaps Felicity hard across the face; and then when she fights back, he slams her against the wall.


End file.
